SOCIAL   LAWS. 

By  SOLON  LAUER. 

A  vigorous  and  timely  book,  discussing  some  of 
the  most  vital  social  problems  of  the  day  from  the 
view-point  of  Evolution  and  Natural  Law.  Ele 
gantly  printed  and  bound.  Price,  $2.00.  Here  are 
a  few  notices  from  readers  of  the  advance  sheets  : 

FROM  PRESIDENT  THWING. 

"  The  book  is  so  able  that  it  challenges  dissent,  as  well  as 
awakens  a  sense  of  admiration  for  its  boldness  and  intellectual 
insight  and  force." 

Pres.  CHAS.  F.  THWJNG, 

Western  Reserve  University. 


THE  PROTEST  OF  COMMON  SENSE. 

"The  protest  of  common  sense  against  the  varied  fallacies  that 
bore  fruit  in  the  European  revolutions  of  the  last  i  30  years.   * 
Well  written,  clear,  eloquent." 

— Boston  Journal. 


CHANTS  THE  EPIC  OF  SUCCESS. 

"  In  crisp  and  picturesque  English  the  author  deals  with  the 
rights  of  capital  and  labor,  the  question  of  wages,  the  trust  and  the 
labor  union,  taxation,  monetary  theories,  charity  and  philanthropy, 
expansion,  theories  of  government,  etc. 

"  Chants  the  epic  of  success. 

"Will  be  fiercely  attacked  by  the  so-called  reformers  of  the 
country,  but  conservative  minds  will  commend  its  influence  as 
trending  toward  a  sound  political  and  industrial  policy." 

—  Cleveland,  0.,  Leader. 


Copyright  by  1'urdy,  Ho 


MARK  HANNA 

A    SKETCH    FROM    LIFE 
AND    OTHER    ESSAYS 


By 
SOLON  LAUER, 


AUTHOR  OF 


Life    and    Light    from    Above, 
Social  Laws,   Etc. 


CLEVELAND,    OHIO 
NIKE  PUBLISHING  HOUSE 

1901 


COPYRIGHT,  1901, 

BY 
SOLON  LAUER. 


imperial 

CLEVELAND,   OHIO. 


TO  MY  JOE  (  HE  KNOWS  )  ,  WHO  BE 
LIEVED  IN  ME  WHEN  OTHERS  DOUBTED  ; 
WHOSE  HEART  AND  BRAIN  HAVE 
ANSWERED  TO  MY  OWN,  IN  EVERY 
LOFTY  THOUGHT  OR  SENTIMENT; 
WHOSE  AID  AND  SYMPATHY  WERE 
MINE  WHEN  FIRST  I  LAUNCHED  MY 
LITTLE  BARK  UPON  THE  STORMY  SEA 
OF  LITERATURE  ;  THIS  VOLUME,  WHICH 
I  WISH  WERE  A  MORE  WORTHY  TRIBUTE 
OF  MY  APPRECIATION  AND  AFFECTION, 
IS  INSCRIBED. 


S1207 


A  PREFATORY    POSTSCRIPT. 


As  this  volume  goes  to  press,  the  whole  coun 
try,  nay,  the  whole  world,  is  stirred  to  its  pro- 
foundest  depths  of  feeling,  over  the  dastardly 
assassination  of  President  McKinley. 

This  outrage  is  the  legitimate  outcome  of  the 
agitation  which  certain  classes  of  demagogues 
have  been  carrying  on  for  years.  The  generation 
and  aggravation  of  class  hatred,  the  wholesale 
denunciation  of  rich  men,  the  persistent  attacks 
and  aggravation  of  class  hatred,  the  wholesale 
charges  of  robbery  and  oppression  continuously 
brought  against  large  employers  of  labor,  could 
not  but  end  in  violence,  sooner  or  later. 

That  this  fiendish  act  of  Czolgosz  was  inspired 
by  his  long  cherished  hatred  of  rich  men  is  evi 
denced  by  the  assassin's  own  words.  Czolgosz  is 
one  of  a  large  and  growing  class  who  suffer  from 
Plutophobia.  He  says :  "I  hope  he  dies.  I  shot 
him  because  it  was  my  duty.  The  man  who  suc 
ceeds  him  must  not  be  the  slave  of  capital,  or  he 
will  perish,  too." 

Emil  Schilling,  treasurer  of  an  anarchist  club 
in  Cleveland,  said  to  a  reporter  of  the  Leader : 


iv        A  PREFATORY  POSTSCRIPT. 

"The  man  who  shot  the  President  knew  that 
McKinley  and  his  clique  were  taking  millions 
from  the  men  who  produce  the  wealth.  What 
could  be  more  natural  than  that  he  should  shoot 
him?" 

Another  individual  is  reported  to  have  said  that 
Czolgosz  ought  to  have  shot  Mark  Hanna. 

Among  certain  classes  in  this  country  the  ha 
tred  for  Mark  Hanna  is  so  intense  that  it  would 
not  have  been  surprising  had  he  been  included 
in  the  plot  against  McKinley's  life.  The  idea 
has  been  persistently  inculcated  by  many  papers 
that  Mark  Hanna  was  the  actual  President,  and 
McKinley  only  his  obedient  and  submissive  serv 
ant.  Expressions  from  anarchistic  sympathizers 
in  various  quarters  show  too  plainly  that  this 
poisonous  seed,  scattered  by  the  hands  of  dema 
gogues,  has  taken  root  among  the  enemies  of 
government;  and  we  may  at  any  time  expect  to 
reap  a  further  harvest  of  blood  from  these  lusty 
but  pernicious  plants. 

According  to  report,  Emma  Goldman,  "the 
High  Priestess  of  Anarchy,"  and  the  inspiring 
angel  of  assassin  Czolgosz,  uttered  the  following 
sentiments  in  Chicago: 

"Mark  Hanna  has  been  the  ruler  of  this  coun 
try,  not  McKinley.  McKinley  has  been  the  most 
insignificant  ruler  this  country  has  ever  had.  He 


A  PREFATORY  POSTSCRIPT.  v 

has  neither  wit  nor  intelligence,  but  has  been  a 
tool  in  the  hands  of  Mark  Hanna." 

That  the  assassination  of  McKinley  alone  is 
not  sufficient  to  bring  about  the  anarchist's  dream 
of  an  earthly  paradise  is  evidenced  by  her  further 
remarks : 

"I  am  not  in  a  position  to  say  who  ought  to  be 
killed.  The  monopolists  and  the  wealthy  of  this 
country  are  responsible  for  the  existence  of  a 
Czolgosz." 

According  to  these  words,  the  blood  of  Mark 
Hanna,  and  of  the  wealthy  business  men  whose 
class  interests  he  is  mistakenly  supposed  to  cham 
pion,  must  be  poured  out  in  sacrifice  upon  the 
altar  of  liberty,  before  the  masses  can  be  free 
in  this  America.  Is  it  surprising  that  the  Gov 
ernment  Secret  Service  men  have  thrown  a  guard 
around  the  person  of  Mr.  Hanna  ?  And  must  we 
furnish  guards  for  Pierpont  Morgan,  Russell 
Sage,  John  D.  Rockefeller,  and  their  kind,  to  pro 
tect  them  from  the  weapons  of  red-eyed  mad 
men  like  Czolgosz? 

For  years  this  hatred  of  our  prosperous  busi 
ness  men  has  been  inculcated  in  the  speeches  and 
papers  of  socialists  and  anarchists.  Several 
years  ago,  a  revolutionary  sheet  published  in 
Chicago  contained  the  following: 


vi        A  PREFATORY  POSTSCRIPT. 

"A  LETTER  TO  TRAMPS." 
"Stroll  you  down  the  avenues  of  the  rich,  and 
look  through  the  magnificent  plate  windows  into 
their  voluptuous  homes,  and  here  you  will  dis 
cover  the  very  identical  robbers  who  have  de 
spoiled  you  and  yours.  Then  let  your  tragedy 
be  enacted  here!  Awaken  them  from  their  wan 
ton  sports  at  your  expense.  Send  forth  your 
petition,  and  let  them  read  it  by  the  red  glare 
of  destruction.  Avail  yourselves  of  those  little 
methods  of  warfare  which  science  has  placed  in 
the  hands  of  the  poor  man,  and  you  will  become 
a  power  in  this  or  any  other  land.  Learn  the  use 
of  explosives" 

This  fire  of  hatred  against  the  prosperous  and 
wealthy,  whose  enterprise  has  given  employment 
and  brought  ever-increasing  wealth  to  working- 
men,  is  spreading  far  and  wide.  Its  angry  flames 
leap  to  the  sky,  and  show  us  in  their  lurid  light 
the  forms  of  madmen  arming  for  murder  and  de 
struction.  The  horrors  of  revolution  are  upon 
us,  unless  this  devouring  fire  be  quenched. 

It  is  not  enough  that  we  shall  quell  the  tu 
mult  of  open  riot  whenever  and  wherever  it 
arises.  The  fire  that  smoulders  in  secret  may 
yet  break  forth  and  destroy  the  institutions  of 
our  nation. 


A  PREFATORY  POSTSCRIPT.        vii 

In  the  dark  cellars  and  the  dusty  lofts  of  cities 
these  agents  of  revolution  hold  their  secret  coun 
cils,  and  plot  against  the  lives  and  fortunes  of 
the  rich  and  powerful.  There  is  no  open  plot, 
no  visible  organization;  but  this  brotherhood  of 
murderers  exists,  and  carries  on  its  bloody  coun 
cils  in  the  silence  and  the  dark. 

Its  wrath  is  fed  by  all  the  demagogues,  of 
whatever  name,  who  cry  against  the  rich  and 
prosperous;  who  magnify  the  poverty  and  suf 
fering  of  the  poor,  and  lay  the  real  and  fancied 
wrongs  of  workingmen  at  the  doors  of  those 
who  are  victorious  in  life's  battle. 

Thousands  of  workingmen  fall  a  ready  prey  to 
demagogues,  who  come  like  wolves  in  sheep's 
clothing  to  breed  strife  and  discontent  in  Labor's 
fold.  They  listen  to  the  poisoned  words  of  mal 
ice,  and  the  words  rankle  in  their  hearts.  It  is 
but  a  step  from  discontent  to  violence. 

Although  thousands  of  workingmen  know  that 
Mark  Hanna  has  ever  been  a  friend  to  Labor, 
there  are  other  thousands  who  have  listened  to 
the  envenomed  words  of  demagogues  until  they 
are  convinced  that  Mark  Hanna  is  their  enemy 
and  oppressor  and  that  President  McKinley  was 
his  meek  and  submissive  slave.  This  sentiment 
grew  and  strengthened  until  it  found  a  logical 
expression  through  the  murderous  hand  of  Czol- 
gosz,  extended  in  Judas-treachery  to  take  Mc 
Kinley  's  life. 


viii       A  PREFATORY  POSTSCRIPT. 

The  assassination  of  McKinley  is  of  far  more 
direful  significance  to  the  nation  than  was  the  as 
sassination  of  either  Lincoln  or  Garfield.  The 
murder  of  Lincoln  was  the  last  convulsive  effort 
of  the  expiring  serpent  of  Secession,  fixing  its 
poisoned  fangs  in  the  flesh  of  him  who  had  given 
it  a  fatal  blow. 

The  killing  of  Garfield  was  the  act  of  a  mad 
man,  whose  brain,  naturally  weak  and  unbal 
anced,  had  become  inflamed  by  the  hatred  en 
gendered  in  party  strife.  Dreadful  as  it  was,  the 
act  had  only  a  local  and  temporary  significance, 
so  far  as  its  motive  was  concerned. 

But  the  death-blow  to  McKinley  was  aimed  at 
the  wealth  and  prosperity  of  the  nation.  It  was 
inspired  by  class  hatred.  It  was  insane  Poverty 
striking  blindly  at  the  form  of  Wealth.  It  was 
the  act  of  a  Samson,  in  blind  rage  seeking  to  pull 
down  the  temple  of  national  prosperity,  whose 
fall  should  be  his  own  destruction. 

To  the  befogged  brain  of  the  anarchist  Czol- 
gosz,  McKinley  and  his  supporters  represented 
the  brutal  hand  of  corporate  Wealth,  snatching 
from  starving  Labor  the  crust  of  meager  oppor 
tunity  which  Unionism  has  thus  far  insured  for 
its  subsistence. 

But  it  is  not  alone  the  anarchist  who  takes  this 
dismal  and  distorted  view  of  the  present  indus- 


A  PREFATORY  POSTSCRIPT.          ix 

trial  situation  in  America.  Czolgosz  has  simply 
given  expression  in  action  to  what  has  long  been 
expressed  in  language  and  cartoon. 

It  is  not  enough  for  us  to  stamp  out  the  anarchy 
of  deed;  we  must  also  stamp  out  the  anarchy  of 
the  printed  and  spoken  word.  It  is  not  sufficient 
for  us  to  imprison  or  hang  the  anarchist  who  re 
sorts  to  force ;  we  must  suppress  in  every  legiti 
mate  way  the  demagoguery  which  inspires  him. 
It  is  of  no  use  to  brush  away  the  web,  and  leave 
the  spider  which  is  weaving  it. 

Czolgosz  struck  a  blow  for  liberty  and  equality, 
firmly  believing  that  these  great  principles  would 
be  subserved  by  the  assassination  of  McKinley 
and  the  intimidation  of  his  supporters.  The  power 
of  the  demagogue  is  always  a  despotic  power ;  and 
this  act  of  Czolgosz,  which  expressed  the  spirit 
of  demagoguery  in  its  last  and  logical  applications 
was  one  of  the  most  striking  examples  of  despotic"* 
power  in  the  world's  history.  This  point  was  so 
forcibly  and  eloquently  brought  out  in  an  address 
given  in  Plymouth  Church,  Cleveland,  by  Mr.  J. 
G.  W.  Cowles,  a  prominent  business  man  of 
Cleveland  and  an  active  member  of  the  Chamber 
of  Commerce,  that  I  am  constrained  to  quote 
some  of  his  words : 

"Anarchy,"  he  said,  "which  professes  to  aim 
its  blows  at  despotism,  is  itself  the  worst  of 


x          A  PREFATORY  POSTSCRIPT. 

despotism.  When  Czolgosz  seized  the  pistol  to 
shoot  our  President,  he  grasped  at  absolute  and 
despotic  power.  Czolgosz  already  had  the  power 
of  the  ballot,  the  same  power  which  every  Amer 
ican  citizen  possesses.  He  was  not  satisfied  with 
that. 

Seven  millions  of  American  citizens  by  their 
suffrage  made  McKinley  President.  One  man 
with  his  deadly  pistol  removed  him  from  that  of 
fice.  One  man  reached  forth  his  frenzied  hand, 
and  the  destinies  of  a  nation  trembled  in  the  bal 
ance.  One  man  smote  the  nation's  head,  and  the 
heart  of  the  nation  bled. 

The  Czar  of  Russia  does  not  exercise  such  ab 
solute  and  despotic  power  as  this  man  usurped 
and  wielded,  in  the  sacred  name  of  liberty.  The 
worst  despotism  which  the  world  has  seen  never 
equaled  this  of  anarchy's  apostle  Czolgosz  in  this 
free  land  of  ours. 

Are  we  to  tolerate  this  hideous  form  of  despot 
ism  in  cur  midst?  Life  and  liberty  are  not  in 
alienable  where  one  man  can  seize  and  wield  so 
absolute  a  power.  This  is  a  form  of  despotism 
which  we  must  drive  forever  from  our  shores. 
Life  and  liberty  are  not  secure,  where  anarchy  is 
tolerated." 


A  PREFATORY  POSTSCRIPT.         xi 

HANNA  AND  McKINLEY. 

A  friend  of  Mr.  Hanna,  who  has  known  him 
for  years,  said  to  the  writer :  "Governor  Mc- 
Kinley  was  fortunate  in  having  Marcus  A.  Han 
na  for  his  personal  friend  and  political  adviser, 
and  the  manager  of  his  campaigns ;  and  Mr.  Han 
na  was  equally  fortunate  in  his  alliance  with  Mc- 
Kinley.  It  was  a  compact  of  power  with  popular 
ity,  which  made  both  men  greater  and  more 
"successful,  and  more  useful  to  the  public.  The 
personal  affection  and  devotion  of  each  to  the 
other  was  honorable  alike  to  both,  and  an  example 
of  the  best  qualities  of  friendship  among  men." 

It  is  safe  to  say  that  no  heart  has  been  more 
cruelly  hurt  by  the  stroke  that  laid  McKinley  low 
than  the  big  heart  of  his  nearest  and  dearest  po 
litical  friend,  Mark  Hanna.  This  stroke  has 
added  several  years  to  the  burden  of  age,  which 
already  bore  heavily  upon  Mr.  Raima's  shoul 
ders.  Since  the  dreadful  news  of  that  black  Fri- 
.day,  when  the  heart  of  the  President  began  to 
fail,  Mr.  Hanna  has  been  as  one  crushed  by  an 
irresistible  power.  His  face  is  drawn,  his  shoul 
ders  droop,  and  he  leans  heavily  upon  his  cane. 
His  friend,  for  whom  Mr.  Hanna  laid  such  a 
sacrifice  of  health  and  labor  upon  the  altar  of  his 
country's  welfare,  is  gone. 


xii        A  PREFATORY  POSTSCRIPT. 

The  strongest  bond  between  Mr.  McKinley 
and  Mr.  Hanna  was  the  tie  of  an  enduring  friend 
ship.  Next  to  this  came  the  affinit^of  political 
sympathy.  They  believed  in  the  same  great 
principles.  They  clasped  hands  to  work  for  the 
same  broad  ends. 

The  notion  that  Mr.  Hanna  dictated  the  po 
litical  policy  of  the  President  can  be  entertained 
only  by  those  who  are  not  familiar  with  the  char 
acter  of  the  two  men.  They  were  one  in  an  en 
during  friendship,  whose  foundations  lay  far 
deeper  than  the  community  of  their  political  in 
terests.  They  were  one  in  their  adherence  to  cer 
tain  great  principles  which  the  Republican  party 
represents.  But  far  above  the  personal  aims  of 
either  was  the  starry  emblem  of  their  country's 
welfare,  which  they  ever  kept  in  view. 

There  are  ignorant  and  malicious  minds  who 
will  see,  in  the  death  of  President  McKinley,  the 
setting  of  Mr.  Hanna's  star  of  destiny :  and  in  the 
unutterable  grief  that  mantles  him  in  gloom  these 
will  see  chiefly  the  regret  of  a  man  disappointed 
of  his  political  aspirations,  and  deprived  of  the 
chief  means  by  which  his  own  imperious  will  was 
executed. 

Mr.  Hanna  has  been  universally  known  as  the 
friend  of  President  McKinley.  Is  it  not  possi 
ble  that  this  intimate  relation  has  somewhat  ob- 


A  PREFATORY  POSTSCRIPT.       xiii 

scured  the  vision  of  his  own  character  and  at 
tainments  ?  My  own  belief  is  that  the  influence 
of  Mr.  Hanna  in  American  politics  has  been 
chiefly  due  to  his  own  qualities  as  a  man.  His 
strength,  sagacity,  political  insight,  his  force  of 
character,  his  qualities  of  leadership,  his  inti 
mate  acquaintance  with  the  business  interests  of 
the  country,  must  all  be  taken  into  account. 

Mr.  Raima's  friend  is  dead.  Mr.  Hanna's 
power  of  leadership  and  command  remain.  We 
shall  now  see  whether  this  man's  star  is  a  sun, 
or  merely  a  planet,  reflecting  the  light  of  a  Pres 
idential  orb.  If  my  estimate  of  Mr.  Hanna's 
character  is  correct,  his  star  of  destiny  will  not 
be  darkened  by  this  eclipse  that  has  fallen  upon 
the  nation's  chief. 

This  orb  that  rose  above  the  smoke-stained 
city  by  the  lake  is  not  an  errant  comet,  with  men 
ace  in  its  train  to  all  the  people.  It  is  not  a 
planet,  deriving  its  light  from  a  Presidential  Sun 
to  whose  system  it  was  attached  as  a  leading 
planet.  It  is  a  self -illumined  Sun,  a  source  of 
light  and  power;  and  though  it  may  never  shine 
from  the  President's  chair  at  Washington,  it  will 
still  illumine  the  councils  of  the  nation,  and  lead 
its  retinue  of  stars  and  planets  along  the  track  of 
the  national  zodiac. 

Mr.  Hanna,  in  other  words,  will  not  drop  into 


xiv      A  PREFATORY  POSTSCRIPT. 

obscurity  because  of  the  loss  of  his  friend,  our 
President  McKinley.  Mr.  Hanna,  like  all  men  of 
great  natural  power,  intuitively  knows  his  proper 
place.  He  has  often  ridiculed  the  idea  of  a  presi 
dential  nomination  for  himself ;  but  he  knows  his 
power  as  a  leader  of  men,  and  will  not  abdicate 
it  while  life  remains  to  him.  In  the  councils 
of  the  nation  his  voice  will  still  be  heard ;  and 
because  it  is  a  calm,  sane  voice,  the  voice  of  a 
large  experience,  the  voice  of  a  practical  wisdom, 
it  will  be  heeded,  and  its  utterance  will  have  the 
weight  of  a  natural  and  underived  authority. 

His  character  as  a  statesman  has  been  slowly 
but  surely  emerging  from  the  mists  of  popular  ig 
norance  and  misunderstanding;  and  it  will  yet 
shine  out  clearly,  by  its  own  light,  as  one  of  the 
most  forceful,  acute,  able,  that  has  arisen  in  the 
nation's  horizon.  Mr.  Hanna,  as  McKinley's 
friend,  would  live  for  many  years  in  the  fond 
memory  of  McKinley's  hosts  of  admirers;  but 
Mr.  Hanna,  the  Senator,  will  be  remembered  for 
his  own  strong  qualities  of  leadership — exerted 
during  one  of  the  most  important  epochs  of  the 
nation's  history — long  after  the  popular  concep 
tion  of  his  relation  to  President  McKinley  has 
been  obscured  bv  the  mists  of  time. 


MARK    HANNA 


MARK  HANNA  ;  A  SKETCH  FROM  LIFE. 


The  noble  Cato,  when  someone  suggested  that 
there  ought  to  be  a  monument  in  memory  of  his 
services  to  his  country,  replied:  "It  is  better 
that  people  should  ask  why  Cato  has  not  a  mon 
ument  than  to  ask  why  he  has." 

There  are  probably  many  people  in  the  United 
States  who  will  ask  "Why  this  sketch  of  Mark 
Hanna?" 

When  President  Charles  F.  Thwing,  at  the 
Alumni  banquet  given  in  celebration  of  the  sev 
enty-fifth  anniversary  of  Western  Reserve  Uni 
versity,  introduced  Senator  Marcus  A.  Hanna 
as  one  of  the  speakers,  he  remarked  that  it  was 
only  after  repeated  solicitation,  by  letter  tele 
phone,  and  finally  by  personal  interview,  that  he 
had  succeeded  in  obtaining  the  Senator's  consent 
to  his  request. 

"The  Senator,"  he  said,  "asked  me  why  I 
wanted  him  to  come  out  here  today,  among  all 
these  college  professors.  I  told  him,"  continued 
President  Thwing,  in  his  genial  manner,  "that 
I  had  three  reasons  for  asking  him.  I  said  to 
him,  I  want  you,  first,  because  you  are  a  Senator 


4  MARK    HAN  N  A. 

from  Ohio,  and  Western  Reserve  University,  as 
an  Ohio  institution,  has  a  claim  on  you;  second 
because  you  were  once  a  student  in  Western  Re 
serve  ;  third,  because  you  are  a  jolly  good  fel 
low!  And,"  continued  President  Thwing,  "on 
the  third  ground  he  said  he  would  come ;  and  here 
he  is!" 

The  rousing  ovation  which  greeted  the  Senator, 
as  he  smilingly  stepped  forward  to  address  the 
Alumni,  proved  conclusively  that  he  was  wanted, 
on  all  these  grounds  and  more.  A  chorus  of  yells, 
from  throats  long  trained  to  that  exercise,  showed 
that  the  younger  members  of  the  company  wel 
comed  Mr.  Hanna  especially  as  "a  jolly  good  fel 
low." 

"What's  the  matter  with  Hanna?  He's  all 
right!"  concluded  the  vociferous  greeting;  and 
Mr.  Hanna  proceeded,  in  his  own  characteristic 
manner,  to  make  some  remarks  appropriate  to  the 
occasion;  showing,  by  his  vigor  of  language,  his 
pungent  wit,  his  keen  and  incisive  thought,  his 
free  and  natural  gestures,  that  an  intellect  natu 
rally  strong,  and  cultivated  by  years  of  exercise 
on  the  multifarious  problems  of  practical  busi 
ness,  may  shine  to  advantage,  even  in  the  pres 
ence  of  minds  trained  in  the  subtleties  of  mathe 
matics  and  the  classic  languages. 


MARK    H  ANN  A.  5 

HIS   NAME  ON  ALL  LIPS. 

In  introducing  Mr.  Hanna  to  the  readers  of  this 
sketch,  I  might  add  several  reasons  to  those  given 
by  President  Thwing  for  introducing  him  to  a 
loarned  assembly  of  College  Alumni.  Mr.  Hanna 
is  a  unique  figure  in  our  political  world.  After 
years  of  successful  business  experience,  control 
ling  some  of  the  largest  commercial  interests  in 
Ohio,  Mr.  Hanna  entered  the  field  of  political 
work.  His  rapid  rise  to  a  power  such  as  per 
haps  no  man  in  America  has  ever  attained  before 
makes  a  story  which  ought  to  appeal  to  all  Amer 
ican  citizens  who  admire  genius,  in  whatever 
field  it  may  exercise  itself,  and  who  applaud  suc 
cess,  whenever  it  is  the  fruit  of  natural  ability. 
His  name  today  is  on  all  lips.  No  man  in  the 
United  States  is  more  talked  and  written  about. 

In  England  he  is  called  "the  King-maker,"  and 
people  greedily  read  every  item  concerning  him. 
In  this  country,  to  strike  the  name  of  Mark 
Hanna  from  our  public  prints  would  leave  great 
gaps  of  white  in  thousands  of  newspapers  and 
magazines;  and  scores  of  cartoonists  would  find 
not  perhaps  their  occupation  but  certainly  their 
most  fertile  subject  gone. 

The  very  newsboys  in  the  city  streets  know 
him  by  sight  as  well  as  reputation.  Not 


6  MARK    HANNA. 

since,  Mr.  Hanna  was  on  a  street  car  in  Cleve 
land  which  was  temporarily  held  by  a  blockade. 
The  newsboys  and  street  gamins  saw  the  back  of 
his  head  through  the  car  window.  At  once  a 
shout  arose:  "There's  Mark  Hanna;  hello. 
Mark!"  "Naw,  it  isn't!"  "It  is!  It's  Mark 
Hanna!  Hello,  Mark!"  Perhaps  Mr.  Hanna's 
neck  grew  a  bit  red  back  of  the  ears  at  this  noisy 
demonstration;  but  he  kept  his  temper.  He  is 
the  man  of  the  people,  like  Napoleon. 

On  another  occasion  Mr.  Hanna  was  being 
driven  in  a  cab  through  one  of  the  back  streets 
of  New  York  city.  The  cab  stopped,  from  some 
obstruction.  A  grimy  newsboy  saw  Mr.  Hanna 
through  the  cab  window,  and  shouted,  "Hello, 
Mark  Hanna!" 

This  universal  recognition  is  no  less  a  compli 
ment  to  the  cartoonists  than  to  Mr.  Hanna,  for 
it  is  largely  through  their  art  that  Mr.  Hanna's 
features  have  become  so  widely  known.  At  bot 
tom,  the  success  of  a  cartoon  depends  as  much 
upon  its  presenting  a  recognizable  likeness  as 
upon  the  idea  to  be  conveyed.  It  is  needless  to 
say  that  the  cartoonists  do  not  flatter  Mr.  Hanna 
in  their  pictures ;  but  even  Mr.  Hanna  himself  is 
forced  to  admit  that  some  of  them  resemble  him 
about  as  much  as  certain  photographs  that  have 
been  made  of  him ! 


MARKHANNA.  7 

An  amusing  bit  of  news  appeared  recently  in 
a  New  York  paper.  It  is  presented  here  for  the 
edification  of  the  reader. 

"Mark  A.  Hanna  to  the  bar,"  thundered  Levy, 
the  court  officer  of  the  I2ist  street  police  court, 
yesterday  morning. 

Magistrate  Zeller  straightened  up  as  he  heard 
the  name  of  the  Ohio  Senator. 

At  the  officer's  summons  there  appeared  before 
the  bar  a  small  boy. 

"Where  is  Mark  A.  Hanna?"  asked  the  mag 
istrate. 

"Here  I  is,"  piped  the  voice  of  the  small  pris 
oner. 

He  was  Mark  Hanna,  of  140  East  i$2d  street 
and  he  was  accused  by  Louis  Kortis,  of  I  East 
I32d  street,  of  stealing  enameled  letters  from  his 
window. 

Several  small  boys  corroborated  Kortis'  story 
of  the  theft. 

"What  have  you  to  say  to  the  charge?"  asked 
Magistrate  Zeller,  sternly. 

Mark  Hanna  dashed  away  a  gush  of  unmanly 
tears  with  a  small  and  grimy  fist.  "These  fellers 
are  my  political  enemies,  boss,"  he  said.  Where 
upon  the  magistrate  ordered  his  discharge. 

"You  bear  a  famous  name,"  said  the  magis 
trate. 


8  MARKHANNA. 

"Yes,  sir,"  said  the  lad,  "but  it  ain't  my 
fault.  My  father  is  a  good  Democrat." 

"Yes,  thank  God,"  cried  Mrs.  Hanna,  who  ac 
companied  her  boy,  as  she  led  him  away. 

A  PERSONAL  INTERVIEW. 

I  have,  then,  written  this  sketch  of  Mr.  Hanna 
firstly,  because  I  think  the  public  wants  it.  Sec 
ondly,  I  know  something  about  him.  I  was  born 
and  "raised"  not  twenty  miles  from  Cleveland. 
Anyone  who  has  lived  very  long  in  the  vicinity 
of  Cleveland  could  not  help  knowing  a  great 
deal  about  Mark  Hanna.  The  city  bears  his 
impress.  He  was  an  old  story  in  Cleveland  be 
fore  the  country  at  large  ever  heard  of  him. 
When  I  began  writing  this  sketch,  I  asked  the  city 
editor  of  the  Leader  whether  that  paper  had 
ever  published  a  biographical  sketch  of  Mr.  Han 
na.  If  so,  I  wanted  to  utilize  it.  All  is  grist  that 
conies  to  my  literary  mill. 

The  Editor  laughed.  "To  print  a  biographical 
sketch  of  Mark  Hanna  in  Cleveland,"  he  said, 
"would  be  carrying  coals  to  Newcastle.  Every 
body  knows  all  about  him  But  if  there  is  any 
thing  in  particular  that  you  want  to  find  out, 
ask  the  old  business  men."  I  did  so.  What  I 
did  not  know,  they  told  me. 


MARKHANNA.  9 

My  first  personal  acquaintance  with  Mr.  Hanna 
was  one  morning  two  years  ago,  when  I  called 
at  his  residence  on  the  West  Side,  with  letters  of 
introduction  from  the  son  of  a  former  President 
and  others.  Mr.  Hanna  was  at  home,  reading 
the  morning  paper.  He  was  not  in  the  best 
of  humor  at  first.  His  rheumatism  was  troubling 
him.  But  he  handed  me  a  chair,  and  soon  became 
cordial  and  communicative. 

I  got  my  first  rapid  sketch  for  this  pen-picture 
of  him  then.  He  impressed  me  as  one  of  the 
keenest,  clearest-headed  men  I  had  ever  met. 
His  eyes  were  like  electric  lights.  His  words 
were  clean-cut,  and  went  straight  to  the  mark, 
like  bullets  to  the  bull's-eye.  He  expressed  his 
opinion  freely,  on  certain  public  questions. 

"What  do  you  think  of  the  laws  that  are  being 
framed  against  the  so-called  trusts  ?"  I  asked  him. 

"They're  all  unconstitutional, — every  one  of 
them !"  he  exclaimed,  with  a  frankness  that  sur 
prised  me.  I  had  looked  for  a  cautious  answer, — 
the  answer  of  the  politician.  I  received  the  frank, 
unhesitating  answer  of  the  independent,  fearless 
business  man.  It  is  a  marvel  to  me  how  this 
blunt,  honest,  out-spoken  man  has  ever  succeeded 
as  he  has  in  politics.  In  politics,  honesty  is  not 
considered  the  best  policy.  The  politician  is  sup 
posed  to  weigh  every  word  he  utters,  to  determine 


io  MARK   HANNA. 

its  effect  upon  voters.  He  cannot  tell  the  public 
what  he  thinks,  but  only  what  his  party  thinks, 
and  expresses  in  its  platform.  His  utterance  is 
always  official,  never  personal.  He  has  no  indi 
vidual  opinions, — or  none  to  speak  of ! 

I  saw  at  once  that  Mr.  Hanna  dominated  party 
conventions  and  party  platforms  because  he  is 
greater  than  they  are.  He  knows  it,  and  acts 
it.  He  knows  that  masses  of  men  follow'leaders 
who  are  strong  enough  to  command  them.  He 
knows  that  masses  of  men  take  their  opinions 
from  strong  leaders.  This  is  not  exactly  in  ac 
cord  with  some  of  our  democratic  ideas,  but  it 
is  a  fact. 

I  will  not  betray  Mr.  Hanna's  confidence  by 
repeating  all  that  he  said.  I  do  not  fancy  that 
he  would  object,  but  it  would  hurt  the  feelings  of 
some  sincere  people.  Mr.  Hanna  probably  did 
not  say  anything  to  me  that  he  was  afraid  to  say 
in  public,  if  occasion  should  arise. 

With  reference  to  the  "anti-imperialists"  and 
their  work,  he  expressed  unutterable  disgust.  He 
seemed  tc  think  that  it  was  the  expression  not  so 
much  of  perversity  as  of  imbecility.  That  was 
certainly  a  charitable  view  of  it!  His  contempt 
for  Boston  was  unmistakable.  It  was  plain  thatl 
ihe  considered  that  place  the  hot-bed  of  all  politi 
cal  heresy.  Old  women,  garrulous  gossips,  med- 


MARK   HANNA.  n 

dling  with  matters  beyond  their  understanding; 
sentimental  quibblers,  utterly  lacking  in  com 
mon  sense ;  such  were  the  people  who  were  harry 
ing  the  Administration  with  their  anti-imperial 
ist  nonsense ! 

But  it  was  soon  time  for  Mr.  Hanna  to  go  to 
town.  He  rose  and  pressed  a  button.  A  car 
riage,  drawn  by  a  handsome  span  of  horses,  was 
driven  to  the  door.  Mr.  Hanna  courteously  in 
vited  me  to  ride  with  him.  During  the  pleasant 
drive  through  the  winding  boulevards  of  the  park 
we  chatted  of  various  things.  Mr.  Hanna  re 
vealed  the  sunny,  genial  side  of  his  nature,  which 
is  sometimes  concealed  from  unwelcome  visitors. 

I  remarked  that  I  hoped  Mr.  McKinley  would 
be  nominated  for  a  second  term,  and  that  Mr. 
Hanna  would  manage  the  campaign, 

"He  will  be  nominated,"  replied  Mr  Hanna,  in 
a  tone  that  indicated  the  certainty  of  Fate;  "but 
I  must  keep  out  of  it.  I  have  had  two  serious 
attacks  of  heart  trouble,  and  my  physicians  have 
warned  me  against  all  manner  of  excitement." 

How  well  Mr.  Hanna  has  heeded  that  warning, 
the  public  very  well  knows.  His  hfeart  was  in 
his  work.  It  had  to  keep  throbbing.  Physicians' 
warnings  were  wasted.  I  believe  Mr.  Hanna 
would  have  died  in  his  place  rather  than  relin 
quish  what  he  believed  to  be  his  duty.  Death  will 


12  MARKHANNA. 

sometime  stop  his  restless  activity ;  but  the  fear 
of  death  will  never  do   so. 

AN  APOLOGY  FOR  MR.  HANNA. 

As  I  said  before,  I  have  written  this  sketch 
of  Mr.  Hanna  because  I  think  the  public  wants 
it.  When  I  say  the  public,  I  mean  a  very  large 
part  of  the  people  of  the  United  States,  and  a 
goodly  proportion  of  the  people  of  all  English- 
speaking  countries.  There  is  a  considerable  ele 
ment  in  the  United  States,  however,  that  not  only 
does  not  want  to  know  anything  about  Mark 
lianna, — at  least,  anything  good, — but  that  will 
raise  a  hue  and  cry  against  the  writer  for  at 
tempting  to  tell  them  anything. 

To  them,  Mark  Hanna  is  a  Monster.  He  rep 
resents  all  that  is  worst  in  our  civilization.  He 
is  a  scamp  Jupiter,  who  has  got  the  Olympian 
throne  by  purchase,  and  has  corrupted  all  the 
other  gods.  He  builds  earthly  thrones  of  gold, 
and  sets  rulers  thereon,  who  meekly  do  his  will. 
He  is  the  Boss  Deity  of  the  political  Olympus, 
with  countless  legions  of  purchased  angels  to 
do  his  bidding.  To  these  people  he  is  the  typical 
plutocrat ;  and  gold,  and  Pluto  of  the  infernal 
underworld,  are  the  allied  forces  of  his  corrupt 
ed  kingdom. 


MARKHANNA.  13 

The  intensity  of  the  hatred  felt  by  some  people 
in  this  country  for  Mark  Hanna  cannot  be  ex 
pressed  in  words.  Mr.  Hanna  does  not,  cannot 
fully  realize  it ;  and  it  is  well  that  he  cannot.  I 
know  many  Republicans  who  speak  of  Mr.  Han 
na  in  a  tone  of  apology.  They  have  heard  so 
much  about  his  rascality  that  they  begin  to  think 
it  is  true.  They  have  not  heard  the  things  they 
ought  to  hear. 

I  know  other  Republicans  who  waver  in  their 
loyalty  to  the  party  because  of  this  feeling  that 
Mr.  Hanna  has  become  its  ruler,  and  that  he  is 
not  as  good  as  he  ought  to  be.  One  of  my  chief 
reasons  for  writing  this  sketch  is  to  tell  these 
people  a  few  things  about  Mr.  Hanna  which  may 
serve  to  give  them  a  juster  estimate  of  his  charac 
ter. 

I  do  not  conceal  my  preference  for  the  Re 
publican  party  in  American  politics.  No  party 
is  perfect.  Political  affiliation  is  at  best  a  com 
promise,  a  matter  of  expediency.  But  the  Re 
publican  party  to  my  mind  is  the  party  of  safety, 
the  party  of  conservatism,  and  I  wish  it  well.  I 
do  not  want  any  of  its  friends  and  supporters  to 
leave  it  because  of  ignorance  and  misunderstand 
ing  concerning  Mr.  Hanna  and  his  work.  I  write 
not  so  much  in  the  interest  of  Mr.  Hanna  person- 


14  MARKHANNA. 

ally  as  in  the  interests  of  the  party  and  the  polit 
ical  policy  which  he  so  prominently  represents. 

NOT  AN  OFFICIAL  DOCUMENT. 

In  sending  out  this  little  sketch  to  the  public,  I 
wish  it  distinctly  understood  that  it  is  in  no  sense 
an  official  document.  Mr  Hanna  has  not  been 
asked  to  sanction  or  endorse  it  in  any  way.  He 
has  had  no  part  whatever  in  the  preparation  of  it. 
It  has  no  relation  whatever,  occult  or  otherwise, 
to  any  so-called  "Hanna  boom."  It  is  simply  one 
of  a  projected  series  of  biographical  sketches, 
which,  when  completed,  will  include  a  number 
of  the  prominent  men  of  the  day. 

Mr.  Hanna  personally  is  averse  to  any  formal 
publication  of  his  achievements,  either  in  busi 
ness  or  politics.  His  career  has  been  that  of  a 
public-spirited  citizen,  who  has  succeeded  in 
business  as  many  other  men  have  done,  by  virtue 
of  natural  talent  and  close  application,  and  whose 
political  notoriety  has  been  very  largely  thrust 
upon  him,  as  a  consequence  of  activities  entered 
upon  from  motives  of  disinterested  patriotism. 

This  sketch,  therefore,  so  far  from  claiming 
any  sanction  or  authority  from  Mr.  Hanna,  or 
having  any  official  relation  to  his  past  or  future 
career,  is  rather  one  of  those  afflictions  which 


MARKHANNA.  15 

come  to  most  men  who  achieve  eminence  in  any 
particular  direction,  and  whose  lives  therefore 
become  to  a  certain  extent  public  property. 

Mr.  Hanna  has  become  so  vitally  connected 
with  our  national  history  that  people  wish  to 
know  more  about  his  personality.  Where  others 
might  do  worse,  even  if  some  should  do  better,  it 
is  no  sin  for  the  author  of  this  essay  to  offer  it 
to  the  public,  in  the  hope  that  it  may  both  serve 
a  growing  public  interest  that  is  largely  pardon 
able,  and  present  a  juster  estimate  of  Mr.  Han- 
na's  character  than  that  commonly  promulgated 
by  his  political  enemies.  If  it  shall  give  his 
many  friends  and  admirers  some  pleasure  and 
satisfaction  in  the  latter  respect,  and  serve  to  fix 
for  future  historians  some  of  the  fleeting  facts  in 
the  career  of  a  unique  and  forceful  character,  its 
main  purpose  will  have  been  accomplished. 

OUR  INDUSTRIAL  HEROES. 

The  reader  will  note  that  I  do  not  deal  with 
Mr.  Hanna  as  an  individual  alone,  but  also  as  a 
man  representing  a  large  and  increasing  class,— ^ 
the  business  men,  the  empire-builders,  the  meiy 
who  are  laying  the  foundations  of  a  new  and 
grand  civilization. 

This  is  the  age  of  science,  invention,  manu- 


16  MARK   HAN  N  A. 

facture,  trade.  Antiquated  dreamers,  with  va 
cant  eyes  turned  in  upon  their  own  misty  spec 
ulation,  denounce  it  as  a  gross  and  materialistic 
age.  They  mourn  the  absence  of  sentiment, 
poetry,  the  fine  arts.  To  them,  these  men  of  af 
fairs  are  so  many  great  brutes,  trampling  down 
their  fellows  in  their  mad  rush  for  material  treas 
ures.  They  do  not  see  the  real  work  which 
these  men  are  doing,  in  redeeming  the  earth  from 
the  wild  forces  of  nature,  and  preparing  it  to  be 
the  home  of  such  a  civilization  as  the  human 
race  has  never  dreamed  of  in  the  past. 

I  take  it  upon  myself  to  defend  this  class  of 
men  from  the  aspersions  of  their  traducers.  I 
take  it  upon  myself  to  say  some  good  words  for 
this  material  world  and  its  material  interests.  If 
this  is  materialism,  let  the  critics  make  the  most 
of  it. 

I  believe  in  this  world,  and  in  the  heroes  who 
are  making  it  habitable.  Where  shall  we  find  the 
greatest  heroes  today  ?  Certainly  not  on  the  field 
of  battle,  though  war  has  brought  forth  brave 
men  and  true,  even  in  these  days. 

But  in  the  field  of  invention,  manufacture  and 
trade,  in  science,  literature  and  politics,  there  are 
characters  as  worthy  of  the  pen  of  a  Plutarch  as 
any  that  the  classic  writer  rescued  from  the  gath- 


MARKHANNA.  17 

ering  shades  of  oblivion  and  made  immortal  with 
the  touch  of  his  genius. 

When  a  Plutarch  looks,  he  sees  what  escapes 
the  eyes  of  common  men;  and  at  his  glance,  lo, 
a  race  of  heroes  springs  into  being,  where  before 
were  sordid  traders  and  haggling  merchants. 

The  eye  of  genius  touches  with  its  revealing  ray 
the  masses  of  struggling  men  who  fill  our  fac 
tories,  our  mills,  our  mines,  who  dig  and  carve 
and  pound  and  plow  and  reap,  who  sit  beside 
strange  machines,  or  walk  among  whirling  wheels 
and  buzzing  bands  and  rattling  chains;  and  be 
hold,  a  race  of  gods  appears,  creating  out  of  chaos 
and  night  the  forms  of  use  and  beauty  that  shall 
make  this  world  a  heaven  and  human  life  a  song 
of  joy. 

Who  shall  say  that  these  characters  are  not 
worthy  to  furnish  subjects  for  epic  verse  or  he 
roic  annals  ?  In  this  warfare  with  the  brute  forces 
of  nature,  every  soldier  who  does  his  duty  is 
worthy  of  a  laurel  wreath ;  and  the  bold  com 
manders  who  lead  and  direct  these  warriors,  who 
plan  and  execute  vast  campaigns  against  the 
brute  forces  of  nature, — shall  we  not  sing  of 
these  as  Virgil  of  old  sang  of  "Arms  and  the 
man"  ?  Shall  we  not  write  their  names  upon  our 
scroll  of  fame,  that  they  may  shine  forth  in  sue- 


18  MARKHANNA. 

ceeding  ages  like  the  names  of  ancient  Greece 
and  Rome? 

Greater  are  these  names  than  any  that  have 
graced  the  monuments  of  the  buried  past ;  for  the 
names  of  the  men  of  old  are  chiefly  the  names  of 
destroyers  and  ravagers ;  the  lions  and  tigers  of 
the  race,  whose  strength  and  courage  and  fierce 
ness  we  admire,  but  whose  deeds  cannot  com 
pare  with  the  deeds  of  these  mighty  builders  of 
the  modern  world,  before  whose  all-conquering 
arms  Nature  surrenders  her  deepest  secrets  and 
pours  forth  her  hidden  treasures  of  energy  and 
substance  to  enrich  and  beautify  the  earth. 

The  men  of  old  conquered  savage  tribes,  or 
poured  the  blood  of  their  own  brethren  as  liba 
tions  to  the  god  of  ambition.  These  warriors 
fight  with  the  forces  of  the  under-world,  and  out 
of  darkness  and  the  pit  wrest  light  and  glory  for 
their  fellow  men. 

They  grasp  the  very  stars  in  their  orbits,  and 
fasten  them  to  their  standards  to  light  the  fields 
of  their  glory.  Suns  and  moons  are  their  tro 
phies,  brought  back  in  triumph  from  cosmic  expe 
ditions. 

Space  yields  her  treasures  to  these  bold  world- 
conquerors.  The  sea  and  the  earth-deeps  are 
transparent  to  their  eyes. 


MARKHANNA.  19 

They  toss  mountains  from  hand  to  hand.  They 
drink  up  rivers,  or  turn  them  into  new  chan 
nels. 

They  scatter  ships  like  birds,  which  in  their 
strong  flight  go  to  the  bounds  of  the  sea,  and  re 
turn  not  fruitless. 

Over  the  far-reaching  continents  fly  their 
dragon-trains,  more  wondrous  than  any  miracle 
of  old. 

Sea  murmurs  to  sea,  in  the  mystic  whisper  of 
the  telegraph.  The  lightnings  are  our  messen 
gers,  which  obey  our  word. 

Who  hath  seen  the  like  of  it  ?    History  is  dumb. 

What  is  the  secret  of  Mr.  Hanna's  remarkable 
power  and  influence  in  the  political  world? 

It  is  not  easy  to  account  for  any  sort  of  great 
success.  At  the  bottom  of  every  great  achieve 
ment  lies  a  character  that  is  great. 

Success  comes  to  the  strong,  the  brave,  the  in 
telligent.  It  does  not  come  to  weaklings,  to  cow 
ards,  to  dull  and  sluggish  intellects. 

The  whole  world  applauds  success.  These  men 
who  can  do  what  other  men  only  dream  of  do 
ing, — these  men  who  hitch  their  wagons  to  the 
stars,  and  are  pulled  by  the  very  power  of  the 
Cosmos, — these  athletes  in  the  world's  Olympian 
games,  conquering  all  who  come  against  them, 


20  MARK   H  ANN  A. 

standing  with  folded  arms  awaiting  new  assail 
ants,  conscious  of  superior  power,  strong  in  the 
victories  they  have  won; — these  men,  I  say,  fas 
cinate  the  multitude,  and  easily  wear  the  laurels 
which  are  placed  upon  their  brows. 

THE  LION  IN  HIS  DEN. 

Mr.  Hanna  is  a  Colossus,  who  tosses  commer 
cial  interests  and  political  offices  like  baubles. 
Senators  and  Congressmen,  millionaire  business 
managers,  aspirants  for  political  favors,  newspa 
per  men,  even  clergymen  and  college  presidents, 
jostle  together  in  the  corridors  leading  to  his  pri 
vate  office  in  the  Perry-Payne  Building,  Cleve 
land. 

If  you  wish  to  see  him,  you  approach  the  rail 
ing  that  separates  the  numerous  business  offices 
of  M.  A.  Hanna  &  Co.  from  the  outside  world. 

Here  a  colored  porter  takes  your  card,  and  car 
ries  it  to  some  inner  sanctum,  where  it  is  received 
by  Mr.  Hanna's  private  secretary. 

If  you  are  a  "persona  non  grata,"  you  are  re 
spectfully  informed  that  Mr.  Hanna  is  too  busy 
to  see  you  today.  If  your  business  is  deemed 
of  some  importance,  it  may  be  disposed  of  by  the 
private  secretary,  who  will  meet  you,  when  your 
turn  comes,  in  his  private  office.  Meantime,  per- 


MARKHANNA.  21 

haps,  you  sit  on  a  long  bench  in  company  with 
others  who  are  waiting. 

If  your  business  really  justifies  a  personal  in 
terview  with  Mr.  Hanna,  you  will  be  informed 
that  Mr.  Hanna  will  see  you,  as  soon  as  he  is  at 
liberty;  and  you  will  be  invited  to  leave  the  ple 
beian  bench  in  the  corridor  for  a  seat  in  the  office 
of  the  secretary. 

When  your  turn  arrives,  you  are  ushered  by  the 
secretary  into  Mr.  Hanna's  private  office. 

Your  reception  will  depend  upon  your  per 
sonal  relation  to  Mr.  Hanna,  and  the  importance 
of  your  business. 

Letters  of  introduction,  from  whatever  source, 
count  for  but  little.  Mr.  Hanna  is  not  awed  by 
great  names. 

Mr.  Hanna  is  no  snob,  no  aristocrat,  in  the  or 
dinary  sense  of  the  word;  but  he  is  a  man  who 
can  read  character  by  its  natural  signs,  and  who 
recognizes  no  other  passport  to  his  favor. 

When  you  have  been  introduced  to  him,  if  you 
are  a  stranger,  he  calmly  awaits  the  statement  of 
your  business.  He  has  no  time  for  mere  words. 
What  you  would  say,  you  must  say  briefly,  con 
cisely. 

He  looks  you  through  and  through  with  his 
keen  dark  eyes.  They  are  searchlights,  from 


22  MARKHANNA. 

which  no  secret  can  be  hidden.  If  you  are  dis 
sembling,  you  will  not  deceive  those  eyes.  What 
ever  your  words  may  say,  those  eyes  will  detect 
the  lie  in  your  mind. 

It  is  said  that  one  of  the  principal  elements  in 
the  success  of  Napoleon  was  his  ability  to  esti 
mate  the  character  of  his  associates.  In  the  busi 
ness  and  political  world,  this  faculty  is  quite  as 
important  as  in  the  military,  and  Mr.  Hanna  pos 
sesses  it  to  a  remarkable  degree. 

When  you  have  stated  your  business,  Mr.  Han 
na  will  probably  ask  you  a  few  quiet  questions. 
You  will  perceive  that  he  does  not  waste  words 
upon  superficial  matters,  but  each  question  goes 
to  the  bottom  of  the  business.  Practical  above 
all  things,  he  seeks  always  for  some  guarantee  of 
success.  It  is  not  a  question  whether  the  plan 
be  a  good  one, — but,  will  it  work  in  practice? 
If  it  will  not,  Mr.  Hanna  will  have  none  of  it. 

As  he  sits  quietly  at  his  desk,  with  a  certain 
massive  dignity  and  poise,  you  feel  that  you  are 
in  the  presence  of  a  man  of  power.  He  is  not  a 
mere  figurehead.  He  is  the  man  who  does  things, 
- — large,  masculine,  with  a  certain  quiet  command 
in  tone  and  gesture  which  indicates  the  natural 
leader  of  men. 

His   mind   acts   quickly  but   powerfully   upon 


MARKHANNA.  23 

whatever  question  comes  before  him.  He  has 
the  Napoleonic  grasp  of  details,  and  his  self-reli 
ance  is  born  of  the  consciousness  of  his  own 
power. 

In  his  business  councils  he  is  what  Grant  was 
in  his  councils  of  war.  He  sits  quietly  listening 
to  the  various  remarks,  reserving  his  own.  When 
all  others  have  spoken,  he  gives  his  opinion,  in  a 
few  quiet  words;  and  his  business  associates  as 
sert  that  he  is  almost  invariably  correct. 

As  you  talk  with  him,  nis  secretary  enters  with 
a  dozen  letters,  and  presents  them  for  Mr.  Han- 
na's  reply  or  signature.  Turning  to  his  desk,  he 
with  a  few  strokes  of  the  peh  disposes  of  ques 
tions  involving  perhaps  thousands  of  dollars,  and 
the  destinies  of  hundreds  of  men.  He  turns  the 
searching  power  of  his  strong  mind  upon  each 
letter,  and  you  catch  perhaps  a  few  words  of  his 
intructions  to  the  secretary, — "Tell  Mr.  Cortel- 
you" — or,  "Write  the  Senator  that,"  etc. 

Having  disposed  of  these  matters,  he  turns  to 
you  again,  and  without  the  loss  of  a  single  thread 
of  your  discourse,  resumes  the  consideration  of 
your  business. 

You  are  inevitably  impressed  with  his  immense 
power  of  application  and  concentration  of  mind. 
Quietly,  with  no  display  of  effort,  as  an  ocean 


24  MARK    H  ANN  A. 

liner  turns  in  the  harbor,  his  strong  intellect  ap 
plies  itself  to  each  matter,  weighs  each  statement 
and  each  argument,  and  renders  its  decision  in  a 
few  well-chosen  words. 

Here  is  a  type  of  intellect  which  has  not  yet 
been  included  in  the  world's  category  of  genius; 
the  type  of  the  successful  business  man. 

But  why  should  it  not  be  so  included?  Are 
the  classic  languages  and  the  higher  mathematics 
the  only  worthy  field  for  the  exercise  of  intellect 
ual  powers? 

Must  a  man  devote  the  powers  of  his  intellect 
to  problems  of  physical  science,  or  to  abstract 
questions  of  Jaw  and  ethics,  in  order  to  be  recog 
nized  as  a  man  of  culture? 

In  the  complex  affairs  of  the  modern  industrial 
world  are  problems  quite  as  worthy  of  intellectual 
power  as  are  the  more  classic  problems  of  purely 
professional  life. 

When  you  have  in  a  brief  interview  conclud 
ed  your  business  with  Mr.  Hanna,  you  retire,  to 
pass,  perhaps,  in  the  corridor,  a  Senator  or  two 
who  have  called  to  pay  their  respects,  or  a  half- 
dozen  coal  or  street  car  magnates,  who  have  come 
to  discuss  with  Mr.  Hanna  some  business  project. 
How  this  man  can  manage  so  many  various  af 
fairs,  commercial  and  political,  and  manage  them 


MARK   HAN  N  A.    >  25 

all  so  successfully,  is  a  mystery  to  those  who  do 
not  appreciate  the  immense  native  strength  of  his 
intellect,  cultivated  by  many  years  of  application 
to  complex  and  weighty  problems. 

MR.  HANNA  A  PHILANTHROPIST. 

Mark  Hanna  is  no  aristocrat,  in  the  common 
sense  of  that  term.  He  is  a  good  fellow,  acces 
sible  to  his  friends  and  to  those  who  have  any 
real  business  with  him.  He  is  full  of  kind  im 
pulses,  though  his  blunt  manner  at  times  might 
seem  to  belie  the  statement. 

Those  who  know  him  intimately  could  give 
many  instances  of  his  generosity  toward  worthy 
causes  and  individuals. 

This  man,  whom  his  enemies  picture  as  a  fat 
and  brutal  tyrant,  driving  men  to  do  his  imperi 
ous  will  by  the  sheer  power  of  brute  authority, 
is  at  heart  tender,  benevolent,  generous. 

There  is  not  a  church  society,  not  a  hospital  or 
rescue  home,  not  a  society  of  Sisters,  not  a  char 
itable  institution  of  any  kind  in  Cleveland  that 
does  not  in  the  hour  of  its  need  turn  to  this  im 
perious  tyrant,  and  receive  of  his  substance  the 
aid  required ;  and  as  for  cases  of  individual  char 
ity,  they  are  too  numerous  to  mention,  even  if  it 
could  be  done  without  the  violation  of  a  sacred 
confidence. 


26  MARK   HAN  N  A. 

It  is  not  alone  the  politician  in  want  of  a  job 
who  seeks  the  ear  of  Mr.  Hanna ;  but  scores  of 
persons  in  need  of  assistance  for  themselves  or  for 
some  public  cause  come  to  his  office  in  the  Perry- 
Payne  Building,  and  not  one  is  ignored  or  slight 
ed. 

If  Mr.  Hanna  knows  how  to  disburse  dollars 
for  political  purposes,  he  knows  also  how  to  dis 
pense  them  for  charitable  ends.  There  is  no  rec 
ord  of  his  benefactions,  and  he  would  not  al 
low  it  to  be  published,  if  there  were;  but  the 
curious  might  learn  of  many  a  generous  and 
praiseworthy  act  which  should  go  far  toward 
softening  the  aspersions  of  his  enemies,  if  it  were 
known  to  the  general  public. 

Mr.  Hanna  has  been  for  many  years  President 
of  the  Board  of  Trustees  for  the  Huron  St.  Hos 
pital  in  Cleveland,  and  has  helped  the  institu 
tion  with  money  and  with  counsel.  His  recent 
gift  of  $50,000  to  Kenyon  College  is  not  large 
enough  to  attract  general  attention  in  these  days 
of  princely  gifts  to  educational  institutions,  but 
it  is  worthy  of  note  as  one  of  many  instances 
of  generosity  on  the  part  of  this  much-misunder 
stood  and  slandered  man. 

The  usefulness  of  a  prosperous  business  man 
to  the  community,  however,  is  not  to  be  judged 


MARK   HANNA.  27 

exclusively  or  even  chiefly  by  his  public  or  pri 
vate  gifts  of  money.  The  best  gift  of  any  man 
to  the  public  is,  after  all,  the  man  himself.  If  he 
well  serves  the  public  interests  in  his  business,  if 
he  employs  many  men,  and  treats  them  with  jus 
tice  and  generosity,  he  is  a  public  benefactor, 
though  he  never  gave  a  dollar  to  charity  or  edu 
cation. 

MR.  HANNA  AND  THE  WORKINGMEN. 

In  his  relation  to  the  thousands  of  working- 
men  who  are  employed  in  the  various  enterprises 
managed  by  Mr.  Hanna,  we  see  the  real  character 
of  the  man  revealed.  Mr.  Hanna's  men  do  not 
strike.  If  they  have  a  grievance,  Mr.  Hanna's 
door  is  open.  They  can  come  in  and  state  it. 

In  the  coal  mines,  the  shipyards,  and  on  the 
street  railway  lines  managed  by  Mr.  Hanna,  there 
has  never  been  a  strike.  Instead,  there  may  be 
seen  at  the  offices  various  testimonials  from  the 
employees  bearing  witness  to  the  just  and  gener 
ous  treatment  accorded  them  by  Mr.  Hanna. 

After  the  great  strike  of  the  employees  of  the 
Big  Consolidated,  in  the  summer  of  '99,  the  em 
ployees  on  Mr.  Hanna's  lines,  the  Little  Consoli 
dated,  were  presented  with  $5,000,  to  be  divided 
among  them,  in  consideration  of  their  loyalty 
to  the  company's  interests. 


28  MARK    HANNA. 

During  the  summer  just  past  ('01)  the  wages 
of  all  the  street  railway  employees  were  volun 
tarily  raised  by  Mr.  Hanna;  and  in  recognition 
of  this  act  the  employees  prepared  and  signed 
a  testimonial  of  their  gratitude,  which  is  now  on 
file  in  Supt.  Mulherne's  office. 

Is  this  the  "bloated  aristocrat"  we  see  pictured 
in  the  cartoons  of  the  Democratic  and  Populist  pa 
pers? 

Is  this  the  man  who  drives  his  Juggernaut  car 
of  wealth  over  the  prostrate  forms  of  the  nation's 
workingmen  ? 

Is  this  the  friend  and  champion  of  "the  trusts," 
who  squeezes  the  life-blood  of  labor  to  make  rich 
wine  for  bloated  capitalists? 

Let  our  comic  artists  lampoon  Mr.  Hanna,  the 

politician,  if  they  must,  for  that  is  a  part  of  the 

game  of  politics ;  but  let  them  recognize  the  real 

/  .character  of  Mr.  Hanna  the  man,  the  friend  of 


/ 


capital  and  labor  alike,  who  stands  for  co-oper 
ation  between  work  and  wealth;  with  equal  jus 
tice  to  both. 

It  is  easy  for  the  demagogue  to  point  to  Mr. 
Hanna's  wealth,  or  to  his  business  relations  with 
great  corporations,  and  by  so  doing  arouse  the 
envy  and  discontent  of  workingmen  who  do  not 
know  his  real  attitude  toward  labor ;  but  his  own 


MARK   HANNA. 


29 


employees   know  of  his   justice  and   generosity, 
and  have  only  words  of  praise  for  him. 

In  these  days  of  strife  between  the  corpora 
tions  and  the  labor  unions,  it  should  be  known, 
to  Mr.  Hanna's  credit  among  workingmen,  that 
he  was  the  first  man  in  our  industrial  history  to 
recognize  and  respect  a  labor  union. 
'  Mr.  Hanna's  political  policy  is  based  upon  the 
idea  that  success  and  prosperity  for  the  capital 
ist  means  success  and  prosperity  for  the  men  in 
his  employ,  He  recognizes  the  right  of  working- 
men  to  organize  in  the  interests  of  better  service 
and  higher  wages. 

He  deplores  strikes  and  lockouts,  and  justifies 
them  only  as  a  last  resort,  in  the  interest  of  jus 
tice.  He  believes  in  arbitration  between  employ 
er  and  employee,  whenever  there  is  a  real  griev 
ance  on  either  side. 

Acts  of  arbitrary  authority  he  does  not  sanction, 
whether  committed  by  the  capitalist  or  the  work 
ingmen.  Thus  he  stands  as  a  representative  of 
the  interests  of  both  capital  and  labor ;  although  in 
the  popular  mind  he  seems  to  be  the  partisan  of 
trusts  and  corporations. 

There  is  no  doubt  but  that  Mr.  Hanna's  posi 
tion  as  Chairman  of  the  National  Republican 
Committee,  in  which  it  became  his  duty  to  assess 


30  MARK    HAN  N  A. 

the  business  men  of  the  country  for  campaign 
expenses,  has  prejudiced  him  in  the  minds  of 
very  many,  who  saw,  in  his  intimate  relation 
to  the  wealthy  firms  and  corporations  of  the  coun 
try,  evidence  of  hostility  toward  the  working  peo 
ple.  But  if  Mr.  Hanna's  theory  of  the  commun 
ity  of  interest  between  capital  and  labor  is  correct, 
the  more  money  he  drew  from  the  wealthy,  to 
defend  the  business  interests  of  the  country,  the 
better  it  was  for  the  working  classes,  who  were 
bound  to  share  the  ensuing  general  prosperity. 

Certain  it  is  that  genuine  prosperity  cannot  be 
the  exclusive  lot  of  any  particular  class.  Pros 
perity  which  is  based  upon  real  production  must 
be,  in  the  nature  of  things,  universally  diffused 
[Whatever  increases  production,  must  in  the  long 
run  augment  the  welfare  of  the  whole  human  race. 
Thus,  business  enterprise,  though  usually  based 
upon  selfish  motives,  becomes  philanthropy  of  a 
practical  and  permanent  sort. 

THE  MAN   OF  AFFAIRS. 

A  man  like  Mr.  Hanna  must  be  judged  by  other 
than  classical  criterions. 

He  could  not  translate  a  page  of  the  Iliad  or  the 
Aneid;  but  he  is  himself  a  most  notable  part  of 


MARK   HAN  N  A.  31 

that  wondrous  life  of  the  twentieth  century  whose 
epic  is  yet  to  be  written. 

He  is  not  a  Homer,  but  a  Ulysses ;  not  a  Plu 
tarch,  but  one  of  those  types  of  men  which  Plu 
tarch  delighted  to  portray,  in  his  inimitable 
"Lives." 

He  is  a  man  not  of  words,  but  of  deeds ;  no 
speculator,  in  the  dim,  mystic  fields  of  meta 
physics,  but  a  downright  practical  man,  who  sees 
the  relation  of  coal  and  iron  to  the  higher  civili 
zation. 

He  knows  that  the  foundations  of  civilization 
are  laid  in  material  prosperity ;  that  not  gold,  but 
granite,  is  the  solid  stuff  on  which  our  national 
temple  must  be  builded.  Your  art,  your  learning, 
your  philosophy,  rest  upon  the  earth. 

He  will  have  no  unsubstantial  cloud-temple, 
shifting  and  floating,  for  his  abode ;  but  an  house 
builded  with  hands,  resting  on  solid  rock,  and 
compact  of  right  earthy  materials. 

What  is  Law,  to  such  a  man  as  this?  What 
is  Government? 

Let  us  look  closely  at  these  things,  brothers. 
Law  is  no  system  of  metaphysics,  for  the  exercise 
of  sophomores.  It  is  a  most  downright,  prac 
tical  thing,  for  the  settlement  of  disputes  over 
material  interests. 


32  MARK    HAN  N  A. 

Where  there  is  no  material  interest,  there  is  no 
law,  or  need  of  law. 

Where  there  is  no  industry,  no  trade,  there  is 
no  need  of  Government. 

A  naked  soul  in  the  world  has  no  need  of  Law 
or  Government.  Who  can  rob  the  mind?  Who 
can  steal  a  thought,  a  fancy?  Who  can  restrict 
or  prohibit  thought? 

It  is  when  an  idea  becomes  embodied  in  a  thing, 
that  Law  is  born.  That  thing  may  be  injured, 
stolen,  destroyed.  It  may  be  exchanged  for  oth 
er  things.  Then  trade  begins,  and  Government 
is  born. 

Mr.  Hanna  represents  this  practical  view  of 
Law  and  Government.  He  is  impatient  of  theo 
ries,  but  zealous  for  fa*cts. 

Ideals  are  well  enough  for  poets,  but  will  they 
work  in  practice?  Let  the  poet  sing  of  the  new 
race,  god-like,  unselfish,  loving  and  serving  one 
another.  Let  him  chant  of  the  New  Social 
Order  which  is  to  be,  when  selfishness  and  strife 
are  dead,  and  no  man  seeks  to  dominate  the 
thoughts  or  actions  of  another.  Mr.  Hanna  will 
grant  the  beauty  of  the  song,  but  he  will  not 
embody  it  in  a  political  platform. 

He  knows  very  well  that  the  masses  of  men 
are  selfish.  He  knows  that  they  struggle  and 


MARK    HAN  N  A.  33 

fight  like  beasts  for  supremacy.  He  knows  that 
they  need  restraint. 

He  says,  "Government  means  the  fostering  and 
protection  of  our  material  interests.  It  means 
the  regulation  of  manufacture  and  trade  in  a 
manner  conducive  to  the  highest  material  inter 
ests  of  the  whole  nation." 

Mr.  Hanna  represents  material  prosperity.  In 
an  age  of  unprecedented  material  development, 
it  was  inevitable  that  such  a  man,  of  strong  nat 
ural  powers,  should  rise  to  eminence  in  the  po 
litical  world. 

The  scholar  may  sneer  at  the  manufacturer,  the 
merchant;  but  it  is  their  day,  and  they  can  af 
ford  to  let  him  sneer. 

A  HERCULES  IN  POLITICS. 

Mr.  Hanna  made  a  success  of  business,  and  by 
applying  his  business  talent  to  political  work  he 
has  achieved  a  most  remarkable  success  in  poli 
tics. 

Mr.  Hanna  had  long  been  a  warm  friend  and 
admirer  of  Mr.  McKinley.  When  he  started  in 
to  secure  Mr.  McKinley's  nomination,  he  pro 
ceeded  upon  business  principles.  He  organized 
a  bureau  of  clerks,  and  got  himself  in  touch  with 
the  working  elements  of  the  party  throughout 
the  entire  country. 


34  MARK    HAN  N  A. 

He  spared  neither  strength  nor  money.  He 
worked  like  a  Hercules.  He  hardly  took  time  to 
eat  or  sleep.  He  spent  probably  one  hundred 
thousand  dollars  of  his  own  good  money  in  this 
preliminary  work. 

He  broke  his  constitution,  but  he  also  broke 
the  party  machine,  and  got  McKinley  before  the 
people.  When  he  went  to  the  Convention,  he 
carried  McKinley's  nomination  in  his  pocket.  By 
the  tireless  energy  of  one  man,  the  elements  of 
the  Republican  party  were  organized  into  a  solid 
legion,  whose  banners  bore  the  image  of  McKin- 
ley. 

This  Hercules  of  politics,  whose  labors  were 
not  twelve,  but  a  thousand  and  a  thousand  thou 
sand,  has  shown  the  people  of  the  United  States 
that  a  political  machine  may  be  constructed  for  a 
good  man  as  well  as  for  a  bad  one;  that  money 
may  be  poured  out  in  unstinted  measure  for  the 
welfare  and  prosperity  of  the  whole  people,  as 
well  as  for  the  enrichment  of  a  set  of  mere  politi 
cal  spoilsmen  ;  that  generalship  and  command  may 
be  exercised  for  universal  as  well  as  for  individ 
ual  ends ;  and  that  politics  and  patriotism  are  not 
yet  hopelessly  severed  in  American  public  life. 

In  all  his  political  work  Mr.  Hanna  has  been 
his  characteristic  self.  Most  politicians  are  dip- 


MARK   HAN  N  A.  35 

lomats.  They  feel  the  public  pulse,  they  look  at 
the  public  tongue,  they  prescribe  according  to  the 
symptoms,  and  thus  hope  to  gain  credit  as  skilled 
doctors  of  the  law. 

Mr.  Hanna  alarmed  his  political  friends,  and 
brought  consternation  into  many  a  political  camp, 
by  his  bluntness  and  outspoken  frankness.  He 
called  things  by  their  right  names  He  blurted 
out  his  honest  opinions.  He  offended  some,  and 
frightened  others,  who  were  not  accustomed  to 
such  plain  speech  and  manners. 

But  when  Mr.  Hanna  makes  a  promise,  he 
keeps  it.  If  he  says  "I'll  do  what  I  can  for 
you,"  he  means  it.  When  other  politicians  say 
this,  it  usually  means  a  polite  dismissal  of  the 
applicant's  claims. 

HANNA  HAS  NO  HORNS. 

Mr.  Hanna  very  well  knows  that  he  is  mis 
understood  by  many  people,  and  that  there  is 
great  prejudice  against  him  among  certain  classes. 
He  has  done  what  he  could  to  remove  this  mis 
understanding  and  prejudice,  and  has  achieved 
a  notable  measure  of  success,  especially  in  some 
sections  where  he  has  made  political  speeches. 

At  first,  his  political  associates  tried  to  keep  him 
from  going  before  the  people.  They  were  fearful 


36  MARK    H  ANN  A. 

for  the  results  to  the  party.  They  knew  his  blunt 
honesty  and  frankness.  They  knew  that  his  very 
figure  was  odious  to  many  of  the  people. 

But  Mr.  Hanna  went.  In  fact,  he  went,  he 
spoke,  he  conquered. 

He  said  to  his  friends :  "Something  is  due  to 
me!  I'll  go,  and  let  them  see  that  I  haven't  goc 
horns !" 

Harper's  Weekly,  Oct.  20,  1900,  says  of  Mr. 
Hanna:  "Chairman  Hanna  is  about  to  start  on 
an  extended  tour  of  South  Dakota  and  Nebraska. 
One  reason  that  Mr.  Hanna's  campaign  speeches 
have  been  potent  in  the  campaign  is  that  his 
audiences  find,  generally  to  their  surprise,  that 
he  is  not  a  monster  in  appearance,  and  does  not 
wear  dollar  marks  all  over  his  clothes." 

HANNA  AS  AN  ORATOR. 

As  an  orator,  Mr.  Hanna  was,  to  use  the  ex 
pression  of  a  Cleveland  banker,  "a  surprise  party." 

They  had  known  him  as  a  keen,  clear-headed 
business  man,  terse  of  speech,  quick  of  decision, 
vigorous  and  aggressive  in  all  his  dealings. 

They  had  not  realized  that  there  was  in  him  a 
strain  of  Irish  eloquence,  inherited  from  no  one 
knows  what  rebellious  agitator  of  the  Emerald 
Isle;  for  Hanna's  ancestry,  like  McKinley's,  was 


MARKHANNA.  37 

of  Scotch  and  Irish  blood,  and  dwelt  amid  the 
green  hills  of  County  Antrim,  from  which  have 
come  to  America's  shores  so  many  elements  of 
strong  and  noble  character. 

His  eloquence  is  not  of  the  schools.  It  lacks 
the  artificial  graces  of  a  studied  style  and  prac 
ticed  gesture.  But  it  has  the  force  and  vigor  of  a 
manly  character  behind  it;  a  directness  like  that 
of  Antony,  persuasive  by  its  very  honesty,  com 
pelling  assent  by  virtue  of  that  mystic  force  which 
we  call  personal  magnetism.  It  has  wit  and  a 
homely  wisdom  in  it ;  the  wisdom  of  a  large  ex 
perience  in  the  matters  of  which  he  speaks. 

If  he  knows  little  about  a  particular  subject, 
he  is  as  mute  as  the  Egyptian  sphinx.  Dynamite 
would  not  blast  an  opinion  out  of  him.  But  what 
he  knows,  of  that  he  will  speak. 

He  is  not  satisfied  to  know  a  little  about  a 
subject.  He  must  dig  under  it,  look  over  it,  sur 
round  it  and  take  it  captive,  before  he  will  ven 
ture  to  discuss  it. 

This  is  the  same  quality  that  made  him  succeed 
in  business  as  a  young  man.  When  he  went  into 
the  grocery  store  of  Hanna,  Garrettson  &  Co.,  in 
the  early  days  of  Cleveland,  he  made  up  his  mind 
to  know  all  about  groceries.  He  built  up  a  large 
trade  with  the  vessels  plying  between  the  Lake 


38  MARK   HANNA. 

Superior  mines  and  the  port  of  Cleveland,  and 
soon  became  a  partner  in  the  firm. 

Those  who  have  met  Mr.  Hanna  in  business  or 
political  councils  feel  and  acknowledge  a  power 
in  him  to  sway  the  minds  of  other  men,  which  is 
quite  beyond  the  influence  of  mere  words.  When 
he  feels  that  he  is  right,  you  might  as  well 
pepper  the  rock  of  Gibraltar  with  pebbles  as  as 
sail  him  with  arguments  of  mere  expediency. 

He  will  not  retreat,  he  will  not  compromise. 
He  stands  like  Fate,  proof  against  all  prayers 
and  tears. 

This  adamantine  character  has  won  him  many 
a  victory.  Men  weary  of  battering  against  that 
wall  of  rock. 

And  yet,  having  gained  a  victory,  he  is  generous 
toward  his  conquered  enemy.  His  head  is  hard, 
but  his  heart  is  tender. 

He  can  strike  with  mailed  hand,  and  strong 
men  hesitate  to  invite  his  blow;  but  he  can  also 
caress  like  a  child. 

THE  MAN  OF  FLESH. 

He  is  by  nature  sunny  and  genial,  fond  of  a 
joke,  grasping  your  hand  with  a  strong,  mag 
netic  clasp;  but  the  rheumatic  pains  of  old  age, 
and  the  carking  cares  and  myriad  trials  of  his 


MARK   HANNA.  39 

political  work  have  made  him  a  bit  irritable, 
and  those  who  know  him  best  respect  his  moods 
the  most. 

It  is  a  bold  man  who,  without  the  sanction  of 
a  worthy  cause,  will  venture  to  beard  this  lion 
in  his  den.  Intrude  upon  him  with  vain  and 
frivolous  questions,  seek  to  pry  into  affairs  which 
he  prefers  to  keep  secret,  annoy  him  with  re 
quests  for  an  interview,  and  you  may  hear  the 
lion's  growl. 

Wary  reporters  have  learned  to  question  him 
by  telephone,  a  method  which  is  conducive  to 
personal  safety  at  least,  if  not  to  lengthy  inter 
views.  Very  often  the  reportorial  fancy  must 
patch  out  the  information  which  the  reportorial 
nerve  was  not  sufficient  to  obtain  in  full  by 
personal  attack. 

And  yet,  Mr.  Hanna  is  no  ogre,  sitting  in  his 
cave  and  glaring  at  all  intruders.  He  is  often  jo 
vial,  even  boisterous  in  his  mirth. 

He  has  the  solid,  fleshly  body  which  denotes 
the  man  of  the  world.  He  does  not  dine  on 
dewdrops,  nor  sup  on  ambrosial  airs. 

He  has  plenty  of  good  clay  in  his  makeup.  He 
is  in  his  place  among  the  brick  and  stone  struc 
tures  of  the  modern  city.  His  rugged  nature 
likes  the  atmosphere  of  the  busy  street  better 
than  that  of  the  scholar's  study.  He  is  here  not 


40  MARKHANNA. 

to  write  or  say  pretty  things,  but  to  seize  upon  ele 
ments  such  as  iron,  coal,  copper,  wood,  stone, 
and  out  of  them  construct  things  of  use  in  this 
material  world. 

He  belongs  to  this  reptilian  age  of  material  de 
velopment.  He  represents  it,  in  the  world  of  law 
and  politics. 

The  historian  of  the  future  will  look  back  upon 
the  men  of  this  age  with  wonder  and  amaze 
ment.  They  will  be  to  him  as  the  mammoth,  the 
megatherium,  the  plesiosaurus  are  to  us. 

These  colossal  figures  which  dominate  the  ma 
terial  activities  of  this  age, — these  Carnegies, 
Rockefellers,  Morgans,  Hannas,  who  crush  their 
enormous  way  through  our  industrial  forests, 
treading  down  all  that  opposes  them, — are  mak 
ing  paths  through  the  erstwhile  impassable  jun 
gles,  which  shall  become  the  highways  of  the 
world ;  and  all  men  shall  walk  in.  them,  and  thank 
these  mammoth  pioneers,  who  cleared  the  way 
for  liberty  and  prosperity. 

It  is  not  surprising  that  Mr.  Hanna  should 
have  been  drawn  to  political  work.  He  is  of 
the  earth,  earthy,  in  the  best  and  truest  sense. 
He  is  no  dreamer  of  dreams,  but  a  worker  in 
downright  material  elements.  He  is  not  here  to 
sing  of  the  world  to  come,  but  to  do  his  share  of 
drudgery  in  the  world  that  is. 


MARK   HANNA.  41 

This  throbbing  earth,  with  its  puffing  engines, 
its  smoking  factories,  its  humming  wheels,  its 
rushing  trains  and  steamships,  its  singing  wires, 
vibrating  with  thought,  its  mines  of  treasure,  its 
reservoirs  of  oil,  its  broad  fields  heavy  with  pro 
duce  ;  this  is  his  native  home.  He  is  no  exile  here, 
from  some  ideal  star-world,  biding  his  painful 
time,  and  assuaging  the  pain  of  life  by  the  sing 
ing  of  psalms  and  the  muttering  of  pious  phrases. 

To  him,  this  world  is  not  a  vale  of  tears,  to  be 
got  through  with  sighing  and  groaning,  hoping 
for  a  heaven  beyond.  It  is  a  divine  world,  made 
for  man  to  dwell  in,  furnished  with  the  raw  ma 
terials  for  all  that  the  body  and  soul  may  need. 

To  convert  these  raw  materials  into  things  of 
use  and  beauty ;  to  tame  wild  nature,  and  harness 
her  elements;  to  build  homes  and  fill  them  with 
all  that  can  make  the  life  of  man  more  comfort 
able  and  happy ;  this  is  to  him  the  proper  aim  and 
work  of  man. 

To  further  this  work  is  the  true  object  and 
aim  of  law  and  politics.  Mr.  Hanna  is  not  inter 
ested  in  passing  resolutions  of  respect  for  dim 
ideals.  To  build  up  commerce,  to  open  chan 
nels  of  exchange,  to  encourage  manufacture,  to 
regulate  the  social  machinery  in  the  common  in 
terest, — this  is  his  conception  of  the  work  of  poli 
tics. 


42  MARK    H  ANN  A. 

This  fleshly  man,  this  denizen  of  the  material 
world,  is  fitted  for  the  work  which  he  has  under 
taken.  He  is  a  natural  leader  and  commander 
of  men.  He  gathers  them  around  him  as  the 
mother-hen  gathers  her  chicks. 

In  his  Washington  home,  in  the  historic  old 
Cameron  house,  he  is  surrounded  by  senators  and 
congressmen  and  other  public  characters.  His 
forenoons  are  spent  in  meeting  men.  He  sees 
more  people  than  any  man  in  Washington  except 
the  President. 

His  friends  have  tried  to  dissuade  him  from 
spending  his  energies  in  this  wholesale  social 
intercourse.  But  he  was  made  for  the  public. 
He  would  droop  and  die  in  a  solitary  existence. 
He  must  meet  and  mingle  with  men.  He  must 
clasp  hands  with  them,  he  must  speak  with  them 
face  to  face,  eye  looking  into  eye. 

He  cannot  deal  with  them  by  literary  or  other 
long-distance  methods.  He  must  feel  the  throb 
of  their  pulse,  hear  the  sound  of  their  voice.  He 
is  a  human  sun,  radiating  warmth  and  light ; 
and  it  is  necessary  that  there  should  be  a  plane 
tary  system  revolving  about  him. 

This  is  the  sort  of  man  that  nature  sends  to 
lead  and  inspire  the  multitude.  In  him  they  see 
themselves,  and  feel  their  power.  They  follow 


MARK    H  ANN  A.  43 

and  obey,  because  their  aims  and  interests  are 
embodied  in  him,  their  leader. 

PRACTICE  VERSUS  THEORY. 

Mr.  Hanna  is  a  statesman,  but  not  a  philoso 
pher.  He  does  not  weave  speculative  systems. 
Theories  of  government  are  to  him  air,  vapor, 
smoke.  He  is  concrete  and  practical.  Fine 
declarations  of  ideal  truths  are  to  him  but  so  many 
empty  words,  until  their  practical  application  has 
been  proven  by  experience. 

The  freedom  of  Cuba,  for  instance, — what  does 
it  mean?  It  means  freedom  for  the  Cubans  to 
do  as  they  please,  so  long  as  they  please  to  do 
what  is  right.  But  we  must  have  some  guaran 
tee  of  their  intentions.  We  have  capital  invested 
there.  We  have  tobacco  plantations,  sugar  mills 
and  other  interests.  These  belong  to  us,  to  men  of 
the  United  States ;  not  to  the  Cubans.  How  do 
they  propose  to  treat  these  possessions  of  ours  ? 

It  is  evident  that  Cuba  is  not  wholly  for  the 
Cubans.  Some  of  its  most  important  interests, — 
without  which  it  would  be  a  mere  island,  and  no 
nation, — belong  to  citizens  of  the  United  States. 
Who  shall  govern  these  business  interests,  if 
not  the  men  who  own  them  ? 

The  sentimentalist  may  cry  out,  and  raise  the 


44  MARK    HAN  N  A. 

shout  of  "imperialism;"  but  facts  are  facts,  and 
they  are  ever  stubborn  things. 

This  is  the  practical  business  man's  view  of  all 
these  problems,  and  Mr,  Hanna  seems  to  repre 
sent  this  view  in  national  politics.  It  is  not  neces 
sarily  a  base  and  sordid  view.  It  is  not  neces 
sarily  inconsistent  with  sentiment,  certainly  not 
incompatible  with  justice  to  all  concerned. 

What  is  a  nation?  Is  it  land,  merely?  So 
many  square  miles  of  dirt? 

Is  it  not  rather  the  wealth  that  has  been  created 
there  upon  that  land? 

If  the  land  is  the  nation,  then  the  red  men 
were  the  rightful  rulers  of  America.  But  could 
they  rule  our  railroads,  telegraphs,  factories, 
mines,  and  other  forms  of  created  and  developed 
wealth  ? 

They  who  produce  and  own  must  therefore  con 
trol  and  govern. 

To  understand  this  truth  fully,  in  all  its  mani 
fold  applications  to  political  problems,  is  to  un 
derstand  men  like  Mr.  Hanna,  who  represent  the 
so-called  commercial  idea  in  politics. 

If  the  application  of  this  principle,  either  in 
the  United  States  or  our  insular  possessions,  shall 
seem  to  conflict  with  our  traditional  theories  of 
government,  then  it  is  plain  that  these  theories 
must  be  modified  or  abandoned. 


MARK   H  ANN  A.  45 

But  does  it  in  truth  conflict?  Government  by 
the  consent  of  the  governed  means  that  our  busi 
ness  men  in  Cuba  and  elsewhere  shall  not  be  taxed 
or  otherwise  controlled  by  a  government  which 
does  not  recognize  their  rights,  or  admit  them 
to  a  due  share  of  influence  in  the  national  councils. 

It  is  a  very  simple  proposition,  though  much 
beclouded  by  irrelevant  discussion.  When  it 
comes  to  legislation  affecting  property,  the  own 
ers  of  that  property  should  have  a  voice  com 
mensurate  with  their  interests.  Here,  the  vote 
of  the  pauper  should  not  weigh  as  much  as  that 
of  the  wealthy  capitalist.  If  by  our  theory  of 
government  it  is  made  to  weigh  as  much,  then 
property  must  defend  its  interests  as  best  it  can. 

We  talk  of  bribery  and  corruption  in  our  poli 
tics.  It  sometimes  happens  that  the  capitalist  is 
guilty  of  bribery  for  the  same  reason  that  the 
small  boy  is  often  guilty  of  lying ;  namely,  for  rea 
sons  of  self-defense. 

MOSES  SMOTE  THE  ROCK. 

In  his  position  as  chairman  of  the  National 
Republican  Committee,  Mr.  Hanna  performed  a 
work  of  inestimable  value  to  the  business  inter 
ests  of  the  country.  For  his  purpose  all  possible 
means  were  placed  at  his  disposal.  When  this 


46  MARK    HAN  N  A. 

Moses  smote  the  rock  of  corporate  wealth,  a  plen 
tiful  stream  gushed  forth.  No  man  had  ever 
such  power  to  raise  money  for  political  purposes. 
"He  could  walk  down  Wall  street  any  day  and 
raise  a  million  dollars,"  says  one  who  knows  of 
what  he  speaks. 

What  was  the  secret  of  his  magnetic  power, 
which  could  draw  such  treasure  from  its  hidden 
vaults?  A  part  of  the  secret  lay  in  the  char 
acter  of  the  man.  He  had  been  for  many  years 
known  to  the  business  interests  of  the  country 
as  an  able  and  honorable  leader  in  the  business 
world.  It  was  known  that  he  had  himself  con 
tributed  very  heavily  to  the  work  of  nominat 
ing  McKinley.  He  was  recognized  as  a  com 
petent  leader,  who  understood  the  business  situa 
tion,  and  who  could  be  trusted  to  do  everything 
that  was  for  the  best. 

The  rest  of  the  secret  lay  in  the  issues  which 
were  at  stake. 

The  Goddess  of  Liberty  was  in  danger  from  the 
quacks.  She  was  a  healthy  goddess,  her  veins 
pulsing  with  good  red  blood.  But  there  were 
those  who  declared  that  she  was  very  ill.  They 
said  she  was  suffering  from  anaemia,  or  lack  of 
blood. 

How  did  they  propose  to  reinforce  this  alleged 
paucity  of  vital  fluid? 


MARK    HAN  N  A.  47 

They  proposed  to  inject  water  into  her  veins. 

In  solemn  council,  with  Doctor  Bryan  as  chief 
consulting  physician,  these  wise  doctors  of  the 
law  proposed  to  inflate  the  arteries  of  the  god 
dess  with  a  fluid  which,  though  it  is  a  constit 
uent  part  of  vital  blood,  must  not  exceed  a  safe 
proportion,  or  it  becomes  poisonous  and  fatal. 

The  life  of  the  goddess  was  in  danger.  Loyal 
men  rallied  to  her  defense.  It  was  a  question 
of  life  and  death. 

Mr.  Hanna  undertook  the  case.  The  efficient 
way  in  which  he  treated  it  made  him  famous  as  a 
political  physician.  He  proved  his  right  to  the 
title  of  Doctor  of  Laws,  which  has  been  bestowed 
upon  him  by  Kenyon  College.  He  saved  the  life 
of  the  Goddess  of  Liberty. 

"How  We  Elected  'Mr.  McKinley  ;  by  the  Lieu 
tenant  General  of  the  Republican  Forces." 

How  a  book  with  this  title  would  sell,  if  Mr. 
Hanna  would  only  write  it! 

Think  of  the  tons  of  printed  matter  sent  out 
from  headquarters ! 

"We  have  4,000  newspapers  in  line  that  print 
our  stuff,  when  we  start  the  machine,"  said  Mr. 
Hanna  one  day  in  a  conversation. 

Think  of  that,  ye  editorial  scribblers!  One 
paper  only  prints  your  "stuff,"  and  you  never 
cease  to  sing  of  the  "Power  of  the  Press." 


48  MARKHANNA. 

Four  thousand  advocates,  each  with  a  myriad 
of  metal  tongues,  shouting  from  the  housetops! 
Four  thousand  apostles,  with  miraculous  powers, 
speaking  in  all  known  and  unknown  tongues,  each 
one  heard  in  a  thousand  or  a  hundred  thousand  or 
half  a  million  homes  at  once ! 

Is  it  a  wonder  that  the  people  heard,  and  were 
convinced  ? 

And  think  of  the  army  of  orators  that  invaded 
the  cities,  the  villages,  the  country  cross-roads; 
all  thundering  their  warning  into  the  people's 
ear!  i 

Is  it  a  wonder  that  this  Gospel  of  Prosperity,* 
so  published  and  so  preached,  should  have  num 
bered  its  converts  by  the  million? 

Aside  from  the  merits  of  the  Gospel,  a  move 
ment  planned  and  executed  on  such  a  colossal 
scale  could  not  but  succeed. 

"Providence  is  on  the  side  of  the  largest  bat 
talions,"  said  Napoleon. 

In  politics,  success  is  apt  to  be  on  the  side 
of  the  heaviest  contributors  for  campaign  ex 
penses. 

AS  CAMPAIGN  MANAGER. 

But  few  people  realize  the  enormous  amount 
of  work  involved  in  managing  a  presidential 
campaign.  Mr.  Hanna  is  admitted  to  be  the 


MARK    HAN  N  A.  49 

most  remarkable  chairman  the  National  Com 
mittee  has  ever  had.  He  is  no  boss,  ruling  by 
virtue  of  his  power  over  so  many  legions  of  obe 
dient  slaves.  He  is  a  natural  leader,  whose  influ 
ence  with  his  co-workers  is  that  of  experience, 
intelligence,  intuition,  energy.  He  has  the  con 
fidence  of  the  party  leaders  to  a  most  remarkable 
degree. 

There  is  something  Napoleonic  in  this  mastery 
of  his.  Men  who  have  been  leaders  for  the  past 
thirty  or  forty  years  defer  to  this  new  arrival 
upon  the  field  of  politics.  When  the  young  Na 
poleon  was  sent  to  command  the  Army  of  Italy, 
officers  whose  heads  had  turned  gray  in  the  serv 
ice  of  France  looked  with  suspicion  and  envy  upon 
this  little  corporal  who  had  been  placed  over 
them.  But  the  little  corporal  soon  demonstrated 
that  his  position  could  be  maintained  by  native 
power,  aside  from  official  appointment. 

Mr.  Hanna  doubtless  met  with  some  opposi 
tion  at  first;  but  it  was  not  long  before  he  was 
recognized  on  all  sides  as  the  natural  leader  of 
the  Republican  forces.  His  power  of  organiza 
tion,  cultivated  through  many  years  of  strenuous 
business  experience,  his  exact  and  calculated 
methods,  his  almost  reckless  expenditure  of 
money,  his  quickness  of  perception  and  action 
in  emergencies,  his  policy  of  concentration  upon 


50  MARKHANNA. 

doubtful    points,    all    remind    us    of    the    great 
French  general. 

CAMPAIGN  AMMUNITION. 

This  Napoleon  of  American  politics  has  ruled 
and  swayed  far  greater  interests  than  Bona 
parte  in  the  height  of  his  career.  But  his  wea 
pons  are  the  instruments  of  peace.  His  armies, 
beside  which  Napoleon's  legions  were  but  a  cor 
poral's  guard,  are  armed  with  torches,  pamphlets, 
newspapers.  His  most  deadly  missiles  are  words 
of  eloquence,  shot  from  the  lips  of  thousands 
of  orators,  or  bullets  of  speech  fired  from  the 
myriad  batteries  of  the  press. 

During  the  campaign  of  '96,  millions  of  docu 
ments,  ranging  from  the  small  leaflet  to  the 
"Campaign  Text-book,"  a  well-bound  volume  of 
456  pages,  were  distributed  throughout  the  length 
and  breadth  of  the  land.  Thousands  of  articles, 
in  the  form  of  printed  slips,  or  put  into  plates 
ready  for  the  press,  were  distributed  to  newspa 
pers  all  over  the  United  States.  The  cost  of  all 
this  literary  ammunition  mounts  into  the  hun 
dreds  of  thousands  of  dollars. 

FOREIGN  TONGUES  IN  AMERICAN 
POLITICS. 

Mr.  Hanna's  legions  are  of  all  nationalities,  like 

\ 


MARK    H  ANN  A.  51 

those  of  the  Roman  armies.  But  for  the  services 
of  competent  interpreters,  Mr.  Hanna  would  need 
the  apostolic  gift  of  tongues  in  order  to  deal  with 
them.  One  folder  issued  in  vast  numbers  during 
the  campaign  was  printed  in  twelve  different  lan 
guages  :  English,  German,  Italian,  French,  Nor 
wegian,  Swedish,  Polish,  Hungarian,  Dutch,  Bo 
hemian, — even  Hebrew  and  modern  Greek !  Mr. 
McKinley's  speech  of  acceptance  was  printed  in 
several  languages,  and  a  portion  of  it  in  Greek. 

When  I  saw  the  Greek  text  of  the  latter,  I 
could  scarcely  believe  my  eyes.  The  language  of 
Homer,  Demosthenes,  Pericles, — modified,  to  be 
sure,  by  the  lapse  of  centuries,  but  still  the  old 
classic  language  of  Greece, — here  in  this  new 
western  world^  its  accents  used  to  promulgate 
the  gospel  of  the  Republican  party  of  the  United 
States !  Verily,  times  change, — and  we  change 
with  them.  It  wrenched  the  idiom  a  bit,  and  Mc- 
Kinley,  in  Greek  type,  had  an  unfamiliar  aspect ; 
but  there  it  was,  in  the  letters  made  familiar  to 
every  schoolboy  by  Xenophon  and  Homer. 

From  an  article  by  Luther  B.  Little  in  Mun- 
sey's  Magazine  for  September,  1900,  the  follow 
ing  is  quoted,  as  giving  some  interesting  details 
concerning  the  work  of  a  great  national  cam 
paign  : 

"Presidential  campaigns  in  the  United  States 


52  MARK   HAN  N  A. 

are  conducted  on  a  tremendous  scale.  It  is  said 
that  four  years  ago  the  Republicans  alone  spent 
thirteen  millions  of  dollars  in  a  little  more  than 
four  months. 

No  department  of  this  vast  machinery  receives 
more  attention  from  the  managers  of  the  two 
great  parties  than  the  "literary  bureau."  While 
it  continues,  it  is  the  greatest  publishing  business 
in  the  wofld. 

Thousands  of  men  are  kept  busy  in  writing 
and  distributing  campaign  literature,  which  is  sent 
forth  in  hundreds  of  millions  of  pieces  to  all  parts 
of  the  United  States.  Moreover,  carloads  of  doc 
uments  inserted  in  the  official  record  of  Congress 
purely  for  campaign  purposes  at  the  direction  of 
leaders  of  both  parties,  are  printed  and  distributed 
at  the  expense  of  the  government. 

The  average  person,  to  whom  campaign  docu 
ments  are  almost  as  familiar  as  newspapers, 
knows  nothing  of  the  machinery  which  produces 
them.  It  is  one  of  the  most  remarkable  chapters 
in  the  modern  complexity  of  politics. 

Hundreds  of  millions  of  pieces  of  printed 
matter  in  the  form  of  campaign  literature  are 
sent  to  the  voters  of  this  country  in  a  Presiden 
tial  year.  Like  the  seed  in  the  parable  of  the 
sower,  they  fall  on  all  sorts  of  ground.  Some 
fall  by  the  wayside  and  are  sold  as  old  junk  after 


MARKHANNA.  53 

the  campaign  is  over.  Some  fall  among  the  thorns 
in  the  camps  of  the  enemy,  and  a  hostile  political 
committee  springs  up  and  chokes  them.  Some 
fall  into  the  stony  ground,  where  there  is  no  or 
ganization  to  distribute  them  properly,  and  they 
wither  away  to  become  wrapping  paper  during  the 
next  four  years.  But  some  fall  into  good  ground 
and  bear  fruit,  if  not  a  hundred  fold,  at  least 
enough  to  warrant  all  the  labor  and  expense  of 
the  sowers  who  scatter  them  broadcast. 

The  average  man  takes  some  stock  in  what  he 
sees  in  print.  This  inherited  tendency  lies  behind 
the  whole  idea  of  sending  out  campaign  litera 
ture.  It  is  designed  by  the  party  managers  to 
instruct  the  ignorant,  to  convince  the  wavering, 
to  awaken  those  who  lack  interest,  to  arouse  to 
greater  zeal  those  who  are  already  at  work. 

The  stump  orator,  the  brass  band,  the  waving 
banners,  the  cheers,  the  personal  canvass,  must 
be  supplemented  by  something  which  reaches  the 
individual  and  is  convincing.  Ask  the  average 
man  for  his  authority  for  any  one  of  the  state 
ments  he  makes  on  the  way  down  town.  He  will 
answer,  "I  read  it  in  the  paper." 

He  read  it.  He  believes  it.  The  value  of  the 
campaign  document  is  explained.  Here  is  re 
vealed  why  expert  political  managers  spend  so 


54  MARK   HANNA. 

many  thousands  of  dollars  on  the  output  of  the 
printing  presses. 

EARLY  CAMPAIGN  LITERATURE. 

In  the  early  days  some  of  the  campaign  litera 
ture  was  as  dignified,  as  stately,  and  as  substantial 
as  the  founders  of  the  republic  themselves.  Some 
of  their  contributions  have  come  down  as  classics 
in  the  form  of  "The  Madison  Papers ;"  and  The 
Federalist  still  illumines  the  history  of  the  early 
days  of  the  republic. 

A  half  century  ago  the  speeches  of  Webster, 
Clay,  Choate,  Calhoun,  and  their  contemporaries 
were  read  and  cherished  by  the  comparatively  few 
citizens  who  were  so  fortunate  as  to  be  on  the 
mailing  list.  But  it  has  been  since  that  time  that 
the  preparation,  publication,  and  distribution  of 
campaign  literature  has  become  systematized  as 
one  of  the  arts  of  the  political  managers.  And 
this  is  logical  and  natural  under  the  changed  con 
ditions. 

A  great  increase  in  this  feature  of  campaign 
work  has  come  about  since  1880,  when  it  began 
to  assume  wholesale  proportions.  Printing 
presses  had  become  more  numerous ;  white  paper 
was  cheaper.  The  foreign  element  in  the  popu 
lation  had  increased  rapidly,  and  must  needs  be 
educated  on  the  political  issues  in  its  own  Ian- 


MARK   H  ANN  A.  55 

guage.  Moreover,  the  reconstruction  period  had 
passed.  New  issues  which  the  Civil  War  had 
crowded  to  the  rear  were  to  divide  the  two  great 
parties,  and  a  new  generation  must  be  instructed 
in  the  intricacies  of  the  tariff,  the  questions  of  la 
bor  and  capital:  and  the  financial  problems  which 
had  been  battled  over  for  three  quarters  of  a  cen 
tury,  and  which  were  presented  in  an  acute  form, 
involving  the  free  coinage  of  silver  at  the  rate 
of  sixteen  to  one,,  in  1896. 

The  war  sentiment  which  had  made  it  so  easy 
to  elect  and  reelect  Grant  in  1868  and  1872  was 
glowing  less  faintly  as  the  struggle  receded  into 
history,  and  the  close  vote  in  1876  gave  a  jar 
to  the  Republicans  which  was  something  new  in 
the  history  of  the  party.  It  dawned  on  certain 
leaders  that  they  could  no  longer  count  on  'more 
victories  in  the  bloody  shirt.'  The  Democrats 
had  been  inspired  to  hope  for  success  by  their 
nearness  of  access  to  power  in  the  Tilden  cam 
paign.  It  may  have  been  these  facts  that  awoke 
the  parties  to  the  need  of  new  methods. 

A  VAST  FLOOD  OF  DOCUMENTS. 

Campaign  literature  took  on  a  fresh  impor 
tance  as  an  element  of  the  work  in  1880,  and  the 
making  and  distributing  of  it  assumed  huge  pro 
portions.  It  has  been  increased,  so  far  as  infor- 


56  MARKHANNA. 

mation  is  to  be  had:  ever  since.  Both  parties 
have  devoted  energy,  brains,  and  money  to  it. 
and  in  notable  instances  the  quantities  of  docu 
ments,  pamphlets,  large  books;  and  leaflets  is 
sued  and  scattered  throughout  the  country  have 
been  stupendous  when  taken  in  the  aggregate.  • 
On  the  authority  of  one  who  helped  send  it^ 
out  in  the  campaign  of  1896,  the  Republicans  dis 
tributed  from  the  national  committee  headquar 
ters,  in  round  numbers,  three  hundred  million 
pieces.  It  has  been  estimated  that  these  docu 
ments  weighed,  all  told,  two  thousand  tons. 
Printing  presses,  clerks,  express  companies,  and 
the  post  offices  of  New  York  and  Chicago  were 
brought  into  use  in  the  first  handling  of  this 
mass  of  printed  matter.  From  Chicago  two  hun 
dred  million  pieces  were  sent  out ;  from  New  York 
one  hundred  million — four  pieces  for  every  man, 
woman,  and  child  in  the  United  States. 

HOW  IT  IS  PREPARED. 
No  "copy"  in  any  printing  office,  unless  it  be 
the  Bureau  of  Engraving  and  Printing,  where: 
government  bonds  and  currency  are  printed,  is 
scrutinized  more  closely  or  edited  with  greater 
care  than  copy  intended  for  campaign  literature. 
Expert  and  experienced  political  managers  give 
their  close  attention  to  this  detail.     Men  who  are 


MARK   HANNA.  57 

learned  as  regards  the  issues  at  stake,  and  who 
have  that  requisite  of  the  successful  politician 
which  might  be  termed  a  knowledge  of  applied 
psychology,  hold  the  blue  pencil.  Paragraphs, 
sentences,  and  words  are  weighed  with  reference 
to  their  effect  on  the  mind  of  the  reader.  What 
will  be  of  advantage  in  one  part  of  the  country 
may  be  useless  or  positively  harmful  in  other 
parts.  Documents  which  will  appeal  strongly  to 
voters  of  one  nationality  will  be  meaningless  to 
those  of  another.  Facts  which  will  appeal  to  bus 
iness  men  in  a  metropolis  are  often  like  red  rags 
before  a  bull  if  thrust  before  the  eye  of  the  prairie 
farmer,  and  all  these  elements  are  taken  into  the 
account. 

The  care  with  which  special  campaign  docu 
ments  are  edited  and  prepared  is  a  tacit  acknowl 
edgment  of  the  intelligence  of  the  voters  for  whom 
they  are  intended.  Every  statement  is  likely  to 
be  read  and  weighed  and  discussed  in  the  village 
post  office,  the  country  store,  the  family  circle, 
the  clubs,  saloons,  and  other  loafing  places  of  the 
cities.  Moreover,  campaign  documents  issued  by 
either  party  are  destined  to  be  closely  scrutinized 
by  the  enemy.  The  keenest  brains  of  the  other 
party  will  read  and  study  them,  and  statements 
which  may  be  twisted  or  distorted,  sentences 


58  MARKHANNA. 

which  contain  injudicious  references,  will  be  ta 
ken  up  and  turned  into  boomerangs." 

HIS  CLEVELAND  BUSINESS  RELA 
TIONS. 

Mr.  Hanna  has  been  in  business  in  Cleveland 
for  forty  years,  and  during  all  that  time  he  has 
kept  the  esteem  and  respect  of  his  business  asso 
ciates.  If  he  has  loomed  up  like  a  Colossus 
in  the  political  world  during  the  last  few  years, 
we  must  remember  that  he  stands  upon  a  large 
pedestal  of  business  success.  This  pedestal  has 
been  builded  by  many  years  of  earnest,  strenuous 
life. 

Cleveland's  business  men  are  proud  of  Mr. 
Hanna.  It  is,  needless  to  say  that  Mr.  Hanna  is 
proud  of  them  and  of  the  city  which  they  have 
helped  to  build.  In  a  speech  before  the  Cham 
ber  of  Commerce,  on  the  evening  of  May  I3th, 
'97,  Mr.  Hanna  said: 

"I  see  before  me  the  men  whose  brain  and  tal 
ent  and  industry  have  made  the  city  what  it  is. 
And  in  mentioning  them  I  will  not  forget  the 
thousands  of  builders — the  working  classes  of  our 
city;  to  them,  as  much  as  to  ourselves,  is  due 
our  greatness. 

"My  recollections  go  back  to  the  beginning  of 
my  business  career — to  1857.  It  was  an  impor- 


MARK   HANNA.  59 

tant  year  in  business  circles  in  Cleveland,  a  very 
important  year,  and,  I  might  say,  a  good  year  for 
a  young  man  to  cut  his  eye  teeth  in. 

"Coming  to  Cleveland  to  make  it  my  home  in 
1852,  I  found  here  a  beautiful  city,  of  about  thir 
ty  thousand  inhabitants,  known  as  the  'Forest 
City/  called  so,  I  presume,  because  there  were 
more  native  forest  trees  than  there  were  houses ; 
and  you  didn't  have  to  go  very  far  from  this  hotel 
(The  Hollenden)  to  get  into  the  forest. 

"I  have  watched  and  studied  the  growth  of 
Cleveland  from  a  business  standpoint  all  these 
years,  and  I  am  proud  to  be  able  to  stand  before 
this  audience  tonight  and  say  that  no  city  has 
the  right  to  be  more  proud  of  its  record  and  the 
men  that  made  it  than  the  city  of  Cleveland. 
Then,  almost  the  only  industry  that  might  be  so 
called  was  shipbuilding.  The  old  river  bed  was 
lined  with  shipyards.  The  music  of  the  saw  and 
axe  was  heard  by  day,  and  that  of  the  frogs  at 
night." 

On  the  occasion  of  the  fifty-first  anniversary  of 
the  Cleveland  Chamber  of  Commerce,  held  in  its 
new  building,  on  the  evening  of  June  6th,  '99, 
the  President,  Mr.  Greenough,  said,  in  introducing 
Mr.  Hanna  as  one  of  the  after-dinner  speakers : 
"If  there  is  any  man  here  in  this  Chamber  who 
rejoices  in  the  prosperity  of  this  country,  and 


6c  MARK    HAN  N  A. 

believes  that  it  is  due  to  the  policy  of  the  Republi 
can  party  of  protection  and  honest  money,  he 
must  remember  that  there  is  no  man  in  this  coun 
try  to  whom  we  owe  the  existing  condition  of 
things  more  than  we  do  to  Mark  Hanna." 

In  responding  Mr.  Hanna  said:  "It  makes 
me  feel  old  when  I  remember  that  43  years  ago  I 
carried  my  little  samples  to  the  old  Board  of 
Trade  room  in  the  old  Exchange  at  the  foot  of 
Superior  street.  I  did  not  have  on  a  dress  suit 
or  a  white  vest,  but  I  had  on  blue  over-alls.  That 
was  my  first  connection  with  the  Chamber  of 
Commerce,  or,  as  it  was  called  then,  the  Board  of 
Trade  of  the  City  of  Cleveland.  I  was  the  young 
est  member,  perhaps,  and  if  two  certain  other 
men  are  not  here  tonight,  I  might  say  I  am  the 
oldest  member. 

"I  have  fully  appreciated  what  can  be  and  what 
has  been  accomplished  by  such  an  amalgamation 
of  capital  and  industry  as  are  found  in  the  cham 
bers  of  commerce  and  boards  of  trade  through 
out  the  country.  I  do  not  care,  in  the  few  re 
marks  I  have  to  make  tonight,  to  say  anything 
upon  politics  or  the  political  situation.  But  I 
merely  wish  to  say  one  word  with  reference- 
to  the  campaign  of  1896,  in  which  I  took  a  part, 
and  I  want  to  go  on  record  among  my  friends 
here  tonight,  and  in  confidence  tell  you  that  no 


MARK   HANNA.  61 

factor,  no  influence,  no  power  in  those  results 
was  felt  with  greater  force  than  the  united  action 
of  the  business  men  of  the  whole  country." 

MR.  HANNA'S  IDEA  OF  POLITICAL 
DUTY. 

Later  in  his  address  Mr.  Hanna  expressed  his 
idea  of  what  is  the  political  duty  of  the  busi 
ness  man ;  and  it  is  quoted  here  as  throwing  some 
light  upon  the  motives  which  have  led  Mr.  Hanna 
himself  to  take  such  an  active  part  in  the  politi 
cal  affairs  first,  of  the  state  of  Ohio,  and  after 
wards  of  the  nation. 

"It  is  a  misfortune,"  he  said,  "that  business 
men  and  men  of  affairs  do  not  take  greater  inter 
est  in  public  affairs ; — call  it  politics  if  you  will, 
it  is  none  the  less  their  affair ; — and  if  things  are 
not  as  they  should  be,  if  our  municipal,  state  and 
national  governments  are  not  what  they  should 
be,  it  is  our  fault. 

"It  is  our  fault  because  we  never  feel  that  it 
is  necessary  to  leave  our  homes  at  night,  or  neg 
lect  our  business  by  day,  to  spend  one  minute  or 
one  hour  for  our  city,  state  or  country,  only  when 
a  crisis  comes, — and  then  we  do  it  with  the  sud 
den  motive  of  self-preservation. 

"When  we  complain  of  the  laws  which  are 
passed  at  our  state  capital,  we  should  reflect  that 


62  MARK   HAN  N  A. 

we  are  responsible  for  the  agents  that  we  send 
there  to  enact  those  laws. 

"If  we  find  fault  with  the  administration  of  our 
city  affairs,  we  must  remember  that  we  stayed  at 
home  the  night  of  the  primaries,  and  took  no  part 
in  the  selection  of  the  officers  to  whom  we  en 
trusted  our  city  government." 

THE  BRAND  OF  THE  BOSS. 

Continuing,  Mr.  Hanna  said  :  "If  a  man  takes 
a  prominent  part  in  public  affairs,  and  becomes 
conspicuous  because  of  his  isolated  position, 
whose  fault  is  it?  It  is  the  fault  of  the  men 
who  will  not  stand  shoulder  to  shoulder  with  him 
and  help  him  do  that  work. 

"If  a  man  has  the  ambition  to  do  right,  and 
do  good  by  his  fellow  men,  and  is  willing  to  neg 
lect  his  business  and  devote  his  time  to  those  in 
terests,  is  it  right  because  he  is  willing  to  lead 
and  none  will  follow,  that  that  isolation  shall 
brand  him  as  a  boss? 

"All  men  are  more  or  less  selfish;  but  I  claim 
that  a  man  who  has  the  nerve  and  the  courage 
to  run  the  risk  of  being  called  a  politician,  who 
will  step  out  and  devote  time  and  energy  and 
what  capabilities  he  is  endowed  with  to  benefit 
his  fellow  men  in  city,  state  or  nation,  is  entitled 
to  the  support  of  his  kind. 


MARK   HANNA. 

"Otherwise,  what  follows?  The  men  who 
want  to  do  politics  for  the  trade,  for  what  there 
is  in  it,  are  immediately  arrayed  against  him. 

"I  am  glad  to  have  had  the  opportunity,  in 
the  interest  of  clean  politics,  in  the  interest  of 
good  government,  to  urge  you  and  to  pray  with 
you  from  this  hour  to  constitute  yourselves  a 
committee  of  the  whole  to  take  hold  of  affairs 
in  this  our  beloved  city,  and  stand  bv  and  with 
the  men  who  are  for  the  right  and  for  good 
government,  and  see  to  it  that  their  hands  are 
strengthened,  their  motives  not  questioned,  their 
efforts  approved  and  sustained  by  every  honest 
man,  high  or  low. 

"Do  not  condemn  them,  do  not  call  them  politi 
cians,  do  not  belittle  them,  do  not  feel  that  they 
are  humiliated  by  taking  a  part  in  politics ;  but  ad 
mit  that  they  have  motives  as  pure  and  as  good 
as  yours,  that  there  are  men  who  will  make  sacri 
fices  for  the  public  good." 

If  ever  any  man  was  maligned  for  the  part  he 
has  taken  in  politics,  Mr.  Hanna  is  that  man.  Is 
it  possible  that  he  has  deserved  to  be  lampooned, 
slandered,  caricatured  by  the  artists  of  the  Demo- 
cratic  press,  hounded  with  accusations  of  selfish 
motives,  and  otherwise  libelled  as  he  has  been  for 
the  past  five  years,  merely  because  he  has  put  into 


64  MARKHANNA. 

practice  the  theory  of  political  duty  announced  in 
the  words  above-quoted? 

A  CHILLING  EXPERIENCE. 

If  Plutarch  were  writing  this  sketch  of  Mr. 
Hanna  he  would  have  some  tales  of  the  supernat 
ural  to  tell ;  some  instance  of  ghostly  visitation,  or 
of  interference  by  the  gods.  If  the  following 
event  had  not  been  reported  by  the  press,  and 
thus  recorded  as  a  mere  coincidence,  it  might  in 
time  have  been  narrated  as  an  instance  of  super 
natural  interference  in  behalf  of  the  Democratic 
party.  Mr.  Hanna  in  his  campaign  speeches  a 
year  ago  had  made  several  references  to  the  ice 
trust,  in  which  prominent  Democrats  of  New 
York  were  interested. 

One  day  (Oct.  4)  while  he  was  addressing  a 
large  crowd  in  a  tent  at  the  corner  of  65th  and 
Halsted  streets,  Chicago,  a  huge  block  of  ice  fell 
or  was  thrown  from  a  tall  building  nearby,  and 
came  crashing  through  the  tent.  It  grazed  Mr. 
Hanna's  shoulder  as  it  fell,  and  was  shattered 
into  fragments  at  his  feet.  If  it  had  struck  him 
on  the  head,  it  would  certainly  have  killed  him. 

How  easy,  in  a  superstitious  age,  for  this  inci 
dent  to  be  interpreted  as  a  supernatural  inter 
ference  !  Olympian  Apollo,  discarding  his  clang 
ing  bow  and  arrows  for  a  weapon  more  suitable 


MARK   HANNA.  65 

to  the  occasion,  aimed  this  block  of  ice  at  the  head 
of  Achilles,  leader  of  his  people's  enemies.  This 
knock-down  argument,  though  by  virtue  of  bad 
marksmanship  (unusual  to  Apollo,  the  far-dart 
er)  it  did  not  kill  his  enemy,  would  certainly 
have  killed  his  cause,  in  the  minds  of  a  Homeric 
people !  The  ice  trust  would  have  received  celes 
tial  sanction,  and  immunity  from  all  anti-trust 
legislation  forevermore.  Whether  the  enthusi 
asm  of  the  meeting  was  chilled  by  this  unexpected 
demonstration  from  above,  the  writer  does  not 
know.  Very  likely  Mr.  Hanna's  ready  wit  turned 
it  to  good  account.  He  certainly  dealt  in  the  sort 
of  arguments  that  would  "cut  ice."  He  knew 
a  few  things  about  ice,  and  the  trust  that  had 
cornered  it. 

HANNA'S  MILITARY  RECORD. 

Mr.  Hanna  is  a  veteran  of  the  Civil  War. 
Whether  his  rheumatism  is  the  result  of  his  hard 
drilling  during  the  100  days  of  his  enlistment 
the  deponent  saith  not.  At  any  rate,  he  has  not 
applied  for  a  pension  on  that  ground. 

As  to  military  honors,  Mr.  Hanna  probably  got 
as  many  of  them  as  the  other  boys  in  Company  C 
of  the  150th  Ohio.  He  was  the  first  lieutenant  of 
the  company.  The  regiment  was  mustered  into 
the  U.  S.  volunteer  service  on  May  5,  1864,  to 


66  MARK    HAN  N  A. 

serve  100  days.  Companies  A  and  H,  inclusive, 
were  all  from  Cleveland,  and  were  made  up  of  the 
flower  of  Cleveland's  younger  citizens. 

The  regiment  left  home  for  the  front  on  Thurs 
day,  May  1 2th,  marching  to  the  old  depot  to  the 
inspiring  music  of  Jack  Leland's  famous  band, 
which  was  a  part  of  the  organization. 

The  regiment  was  ordered  to  Washington,  and 
put  on  garrison  duty  in  the  forts  which  constitut 
ed  the  capitol's  chain  of  defenses.  It  remained 
there  during  the  term  of  its  enlistment,  partici 
pating  in  the  fight  with  a  part  of  Early's  rebel 
corps,  July  10  and  u. 

While  Mr.  Hanna's  service  in  the  war  did  not 
offer  him  an  opportunity  for  winning  special 
laurels,  it  no  doubt  served  to  give  him  a  deep  sym 
pathy  with  the  sufferings  and  trials  of  those  who 
fought  on  bloody  fields  for  their  country's  exist 
ence  as  a  nation. 

The  young  lieutenant  was  popular  with  his 
comrades,  and  was  then,  even  more  than  now, 
"a  jolly  good  fellow." 

William  J.  Gleason,  in  a  historical  sketch  of  the 
I5oth  Regiment,  says:  "The  jolly,  auburn- 
haired,  freckle-faced  youth  that  served  as  first 
lieutenant  of  Company  C  in  1864  is  now  univer 
sally  recognized  as  one  of  the  most  eminent 
men  of  this  nation ;  a  tireless,  brainy,  unequalled 


MARKHANNA.  67 

political  leader,  universally  and  favorably  known. 
I  refer  to  Hon.  Marcus  A.  Hanna,  successful  bus 
iness  man  and  senator  from  the  great  state  of 
Ohio." 

Senator  Wolcott  of  Colorado  was  a  member 
of  Company  D ;  Gov.  Nash  of  Ohio  was  in  Com 
pany  K;  Nathan  Perry  Payne  was  in  Hanna's 
company;  Allan  T.  Brinsmade  was  in  Company 
H ;  Moses  G.  Watterson  in  Company  F.  In  the 
roster  of  Hanna's  company,  emblazoned  on  the 
walls  of  the  magnificent  Soldiers  and  Sailors' 
Monument  in  Cleveland's  Public  Square,  are 
names  which  are  now  among  the  most  honored  of 
the  city :  Alvord,  Brainard,  Ford,  Gaylord,  Hoyt, 
McMillan,  Payne,  and  many  others. 

THAT  OTIS  BRIBERY  CASE. 

If  this  were  a  biography  instead  of  an  outline 
sketch,  it  would  need  to  deal  in  detail  with  the 
charges  of  bribery  in  the  Ohio  legislature  on  the 
occasion  of  Mr.  Hanna's  election  to  the  United 
States  Senate.  I  forced  my  way  through  the 
tangled  jungle  of  reports  and  discussions  in  the 
Congressional  Record,  Vol.  33,  pp.  6585  to  6635. 
I  was  too  much  exhausted  to  form  any  rational 
conclusion.  It  is  the  old  chorus  of  "Katy-did" 
and  "Katy-didn't." 

One  gets  the  impression  that  there  was  a  vast 


68  MARK   HANNA. 

deal  of  fussing  for  partisan  purposes.  Why  were 
these  so-called  patriots  so  anxious  to  convict  a 
politician  of  using  money  to  gain  a  vote? 

Politicians  of  both  parties  are  constantly  doing 
that. 

Let  us  not  assume  these  airs  of  superior  sanc 
tity.  We  are  all  pots,  and  our  bottoms  are  all 
sooty.  If  some  are  more  so  than  others,  that  is 
no  excuse  for  pointing  at  them  with  such  a  show 
of  holy  scorn.  I  fancy  that  the  "honorable  men" 
who  were  so  zealous  in  denouncing  this  Caesar 
had  designs  of  their  own,  entirely  apart  from  the 
ends  of  justice.  It  is  usually  the  scribes  and 
Pharisees  who  clamor  for  the  sinner's  blood. 
When  men  who  are  without  sin  begin  to  throw 
stones,  it  is  time  enough  for  the  public  to  join 
with  them. 

Mr.  Hanna  may  have  been  guilty,  or  one  of  his 
representatives  may  have  been  guilty;  the  Lord 
only  knows.  Nobody  can  tell  from  the  evidence. 
"If  there  was  any  guilt  of  the  sort,"  says  one  of 
Mr.  Hanna's  friends.,  "it  was  a  case  of  fighting 
the  devil  with  fire,  and  whipping  him  as  he  de 
served.  Any  one  who  knows  the  treacherous 
plot  that  was  formed  against  Mr,  Hanna  will  say 
that  much.  There  is  honor  even  among  thieves ; 
but  not  always  among  politicians ;  though  thieves 


MARK   HANNA.  69 

and  politicians  sometimes  have  other  things  in 
common ;  stolen  goods,  for  instance/' 

We  must  look  broadly  at  these  things,  broth 
ers.  Whilst  the  masses  of  the  people  are  so  in 
different,  politics  will  be  chiefly  a  game  for  spoils  ; 
and  such  a  game  is  always  a  corrupt  one.  Where 
so  many  of  the  political  workers  are  rascals,  a 
saint  could  not  succeed  by  saintliness.  A  good 
man  may  have  to  be  elected  by  questionable  meth 
ods  ;  but  it  is  better  to  elect  a  good  man  by  such 
methods  than  a  bad  one. 

I  am  not  defending  bribery  and  corruption.  I 
am  only  saying  that  when  you  are  in  Rome,  you 
may  be  forced  to  do  as  Romans  do,  however 
much  you  may  dislike  it. 

THE  TRAFFIC  IN  VOTES. 

Mr.  Hanna's  name  has  been  used  by  his  ene 
mies  almost  as  a  synonym  for  bribery  and  cor 
ruption  in  politics.  It  is  presumed  that  a  man 
who  has  had  the  disposal  of  such  immense  sums 
of  money  would  be  more  than  human  if  he  never 
used  it  for  anything  but  paying  the  bills  of  print 
ers  and  the  traveling  expenses  of  campaign  speak 
ers. 

It  is  a  well-known  fact  that  there  are  thou 
sands  of  votes  to  be  had  for  cash,  in  every  great 
election  contest.  Doubtless  one  party  is  as  good 


70  MARKHANNA. 

as  the  other,  so  far  as  the  purchasing  of  votes 
is  concerned.  If  one  party  can  afford  to  buy 
more  votes  than  the  other,  that  does  not  make 
it  the  more  guilty  party.  Where  each  is  as  dis 
honest  as  it  can  afford  to  be,  there  is  little  choice 
on  moral  grounds. 

Whether  the  charges  of  dishonesty  on  the  part 
of  both  our  great  political  parties  are  true  or 
false,  just  or  exaggerated,  the  fact  is  that  most  of 
us  are  swayed  by  personal  interests  in  our  politi 
cal  affiliations. 

I  know  a  man,  and  there  are  certainly  many 
others  like  him,  who  rejoices  in  every  election 
day  as  a  sure  source  of  revenue  to  himself.  He 
openly  confesses  to  the  sale  of  his  suffrage.  He 
says,  "His  vote  is  all  a  poor  man  has  these  days, 
and  he  must  make  the  most  of  it." 

Tariffs,  theories  of  currency,  are  deep  mysteries 
to  his  simple  mind.  He  is  not  able  to  grasp  the 
remote  rewards  which  the  politicians  promise; 
but  the  price  of  his  vote  he  can  grasp,  and  put 
safely  into  his  breeches'  pocket.  That  is  a  con 
crete  benefit,  indisputable,  real.  The  others  are 
remote,  uncertain,  and  matters  of  dispute.  He 
purposely  omits  to  vote  until  late  in  the  day ;  for 
then,  he  says,  in  the  closing  heat  of  the  race,  the 
bidding  is  likely  to  be  higher. 

But  do  we  not,  most  of  us,  sell  our  votes  to  the 


MARK   HANNA.  71 

highest  bidder,  or  to  him  whose  offer  seems  to 
our  best  advantage?  Who  votes  otherwise  than 
for  that  which  promises  to  put  the  most  money 
into  his  own  pocket  ?  Is  not  this  the  chief  cry  of 
the  demagogue, — "Advantage,  advantage,  to  thee 
and  thine,  good  voter ;  do  but  cast  thy  vote  for  me, 
and  I  will  put  money  in  thy  purse.  Larger  wages, 
more  money,  lower  prices  for  what  thou  must  buy 
and  higher  for  what  thou  wilt  sell, — all  these,  and 
more,  shalt  thou  achieve  for  thyself  if  thou  but 
vote  as  I  bid  thee." 

My  neighbor  raises  lemons,  not  that  his  fellow 
citizens  in  the  east  may  have  lemonade,  but  that 
he  himself  may  get  dollars.  When  he  votes,  he 
votes  to  protect  his  lemons  by  high  tariffs  laid  on 
fruit  from  the  Mediterranean.  Does  not  this 
man  sell  his  vote  as  truly  as  the  man  above-men 
tioned?  He  is  not  thinking  of  the  general  ben 
efit  to  the  country  of  a  judicious  protective  tariff. 
He  is  not  thinking  of  the  larger  wages  he  can 
afford  to  pay  his  laborers  because  of  his  larger 
profits  on  his  lemons.  He  thinks  of  his  own  in 
terests,  and  votes  for  them  only. 

Another  man  believes  that  the  free  coinage  of 
silver  would  somehow  better  his  condition.  If 
more  money  were  to  be  made,  he  would  somehow 
get  his  share  of  it.  He  does  not  think  of  the  loss 
to  his  creditors.  He  has  agreed  to  pay  his  neigh- 


72  MARKHANNA. 

bor  fifty  gallons  of  good  wine.  He  dilutes  it  with 
twenty-five  gallons  of  water,  and  expects  his 
neighbor  to  accept  fifty  gallons  of  this  mixture  in 
payment  of  the  obligation,  which  will  leave  to  the 
good  man  himself  twenty-five  gallons  for  the  pay 
ment  of  other  debts.  He  does  not  think  of  the  ef 
fect  of  this  sort  of  practice  upon  the  wine  indus 
try,  or  trade  in  general.  He  thinks  of  his  own  in 
terests,  and  foolishly  believes  that  they  will  be 
served  by  this  sharp  practice.  It  is  selfishness, 
and  mistaken  selfishness,  which  is  always  the 
worst  kind.  But  he  sells  his  vote  to  the  party 
which  promises  him  this  foolish  benefit,  and 
mourns  if  his  cause  is  defeated  by  wiser  heads. 

Alas,  that  there  is  little  but  selling  of  votes  in 
this  Republic!  It  is  the  old  strife,  which  began 
in  the  jungle,  for  self  and  self  interests.  That  we 
use  ballots  instead  of  claws  or  teeth  or  bullets 
makes  the  strife  none  the  less  a  battle  to  the 
death. 

And  yet,  "He  maketh  the  wrath  of  man  to 
praise  Him."  Out  of  strife  cometh  forth  prog 
ress.  The  march  of  civilization  goes  steadily 
forward,  even  though  its  legions  trample  the 
dead  and  wounded  beneath  their  feet. 

HIS  LITERARY  TASTES. 
Mr.  Hanna  is  fond  of  the  drama,  but  cares  little 


MARK   HANNA.  73 

or  nothing  for  poetry.  Here  is  his  nature  again 
revealed.  He  belongs  to  the  phenomenal  world. 
So  long  as  the  poet's  fancies  remain  in  the  world 
of  fancy,  invisible,  intangible,  this  man  of  flesh 
will  have  none  of  them.  Put  them  upon  the  stage, 
embody  them  in  figures  that  move  and  speak  and 
act,  translate  them  into  terms  of  human  life,  he 
will  appreciate  and  enjoy  them.  He  loves  Shake 
speare,  who  above  all  other  men,  could 

"Give  to  airy  nothings 
A  local  habitation  and  a  name." 

In  fiction,  he  loves  writers  like  Dickens  and 
Hugo,  whose  magic  seizes  upon  all  the  elements 
of  the  world  and  out  of  them  constructs  new 
worlds  to  fascinate  and  delight  the  reader. 

It  is  needless  to  say  that  Mr.  Hanna  does  not 
read  Kant  and  Schopenhaur.  Their  world  is  not 
his  world.  He  is  rock,  granite,  iron,  copper.  They 
are  sun-beams,  star-rays, — perhaps  Mr.  Hanna 
would  say,  moonshine ! 

But  possibly  Mr.  Hanna  appreciates  men  of  the 
philosophical  order  quite  as  well  as  many  of  them 
appreciate  men  of  his  practical  kind.  Men  of  ideas 
and  men  of  affairs  are  quite  likely  to  misunder 
stand  and  underestimate  each  other. 

The  transcendentalist  sees  only  ideas.  To  him 
the  world  is  a  fleeting  phenomenon.  It  is  related 


74  MARKHANNA. 

that  one  day  when  Theodore  Parker  and  R.  W. 
Emerson  were  walking  together  on  a  Boston 
street  a  Millerite  rushed  up  and  predicted  the 
speedy  ending  of  the  world.  Mr.  Emerson  re 
plied  calmly  that  he  thought  he  might  get  on  very 
well  without  it ! 

Men  like  Mr.  Hanna  cannot  get  on  without  a 
material  world.  They  must  have  downright  phys 
ical  elements  to  work  in.  They  must  delve  for 
coal,  oil,  copper ;  they  must  clear  away  forests,  and 
in  the  place  of  them  construct  cities  and  railways ; 
they  are  hungry  for  things,  and  do  not  pine  for 
poems  and  systems  of  speculative  philosophy. 

And  yet,  in  a  very  real  sense,  Mr.  Hanna  is  an 
educated  man.  This  word  education  has  not  com 
monly  the  broad  meaning  which  it  ought  to  have. 
It  stands  yet  too  exclusively  for  that  culture  and 
knowledge  derived  from  books,  or  from  oral  in 
struction.  It  ought  to  include  that  knowledge  of 
practical  affairs  which  comes  as  a  result  of  expe 
rience  in  the  world  of  things. 

Many  a  so-called  educated  man  knows  little  or 
nothing  of  the  things  which  touch  him  most 
closely  in  his  every-day  life.  He  knows  about  the 
chariots  of  the  Greeks  and  Romans,  but  cannot 
harness  a  horse  to  a  modern  buggy.  He  knows  the 
chemistry  of  foods,  but  cannot  raise  a  hill  of  corn 
or  potatoes.  He  can  talk  learnedly  of  the  dwell- 


MARKHANNA.  75 

ings  of  primitive  man,  and  has  at  his  tongue's 
end  the  various  styles  of  architecture  developed 
in  the  world ;  but  he  does  not  know  how  his  own 
house  is  built ;  how  bricks  and  shingles  are  made ; 
how  lumber  is  sawn  and  dressed. 

He  can  tell  you  of  the  mural  paintings  of  Pom 
peii,  and  the  hieroglyphs  of  Egyptian  tombs  and 
pyramids ;  but  he  cannot  mix  a  pot  of  paint  for  his 
own  door  posts,  nor  glaze  a  sash  in  his  own  win 
dow.  He  is  versed  in  the  costumes  of  the  an 
cients,  and  knows  the  construction  of  the  sandal, 
the  chiton,  the  tunic,  the  toga ;  but  he  cannot  cob 
ble  his  own  shoes,  nor  mend  a  rent  in  his  own 
trousers. 

He  knows  of  the  tools  and  weapons  of  the  As 
syrians  and  Babylonians,  the  Greeks  and  Ro 
mans,  the  Egyptians  and  Hindoos  ;  but  he  cuts  his 
fingers  with  his  own  jacknife,  and  digs  his  foot 
with  his  own  garden  hoe ;  and  as  for  the  mys 
teries  of  the  bit  and  augur,  the  jack  plane  and 
hand  saw,  he  wots  not  of  them ;  he  has  not  proved 
them. 

The  inefficiency  and  ignorance  of  the  "edu 
cated"  man,  in  the  domain  of  common  things,  has 
long  served  to  point  a  joke  and  adorn  a  paragraph. 
And  yet,  his  knowledge  of  books  gains  him  the 
reverence  and  respect  of  the  laboring  man,  whose 
attainments  and  skill  in  practical  things  the  schol- 


;6  MARK   HANNA. 

ar  too  often  disregards.  It  is  time  that  this  over- 
exaltation  of  "book-learning"  should  cease,  and 
the  attainments  of  the  laborer  and  artisan  and 
business  manager  be  included  in  the  term  educa 
tion.  It  is  time  that  the  young  mechanic  should 
mitigate  his  envy  of  the  student,  and  perceive 
that  he  himself  may  be  an  educated  man,  through 
strict  attention  to  his  tasks. 

MR.  HANNA  AND  THE  COLLEGE  MAN. 

Mr.  Hanna  attended  the  exercises  on  the  occa 
sion  of  the  seventy-fifth  anniversary  at  East 
Cleveland.  The  exercises  were  held  in  a  huge 
tent  on  the  campus.  The  Professors  and  the 
several  classes  had  filed  solemnly  in,  and  taken 
their  seats ;  the  seniors,  in  caps  and  gowns,  mov 
ing  with  becoming  dignity.  The  platform  was 
filled  with  notables.  It  was  an  impressive  scene. 

There  was  a  slight  commotion  at  one  end  of  the 
platform.  A  large,  broad-faced,  genial-looking 
man  was  seen  making  his  way  to  a  chair  reserved 
for  him.  He  walked  with  a  cane,  and  limped  per 
ceptibly. 

"There's  Mark  Hanna !"  was  the  whisper  that 
went  round ;  and  many  eyes  were  turned  upon 
him.  He  took  his  seat,  with  a  ponderous  but  quiet 
dignity,  and  wiped  his  face  with  his  handkerchief. 


MARKHANNA.  77 

It  was  a  warm  day,  and  the  tent  was  packed  like 
a  political  convention. 

The  exercises  proceeded.  A  choir  of  young 
men  rendered  several  fine  selections ;  one  of  them 
being  the  "Pilgerchor,"  from  Wagner's  Tann- 
hauser.  Dr.  Josiah  Strong,  of  New  York,  gave 
the  address  of  the  day.  It  was  a  broad,  compre 
hensive  treatment  of  the  industrial  situation. 

Mr.  Hanna  was  listening.  If  it  had  been  a  dis 
course  on  Dr.  Schliemann's  excavations  at  the  site 
of  ancient  Troy,  he  might  have  been  bored.  He 
is  not  interested  in  antiquities.  Men  of  his  stamp 
are  interested  in  the  excavation  of  coal  and  iron. 

The  address  was  long,  and,  as  I  have  said,  the 
day  was  very  warm.  But  Mr.  Hanna  listened, 
with  perhaps  more  interest  than  many  of  the  au 
dience.  Here  was  a  man  who  was  showing  some 
appreciation  of  the  sort  of  work  Mr.  Hanna  and 
his  class  have  done  and  are  still  doing,  in  building 
the  foundations  of  our  wonderful  civilization. 
There  was  occasional  applause,  in  which  Mr. 
Hanna  joined.  As  Dr.  Strong  concluded,  with  a 
fine  peroration,  even  Jupiter  applauded,  with  sev 
eral  peals  of  thunder. 

There  were  some  concluding  formalities,  in 
which  Mr.  Hanna  did  not  seem  to  be  so  much  in 
terested.  The  seniors  received  their  diplomas, 
with  becoming  modesty  and  blushes.  Mr.  Hanna 


78  MARKHANNA. 

was  getting  a  bit  weary,  and  shifted  restlessly  in 
his  chair.  Diplomas  do  not  mean  very  much  to 
him.  They  do  not  mean  very  much  to  the  gradu 
ate  himself,  after  he  has  been  out  of  college  for 
twenty  years  or  so. 

"The  mice  nibbled  holes  in  mine,  several  years 
ago,"  whispered  a  business  man  at  my  side,  who 
had  been  one  of  my  college  chums  twenty  years 
ago. 

The  assembly  was  dismissed.  Mr.  Hanna  was 
lost  in  the  crowd.  But  he  appeared  again,  some 
time  afterward,  in  the  huge  tent  where  the  ban 
quet  was  to  be  held. 

Long  tables  groaned  with  eatables.  There  was 
a  buzz  and  roar  of  conversation  from  over  a  thou 
sand  alumni ;  there  were  greetings  and  handshak 
ings,  reminiscences  and  laughter. 

When  all  the  good  things  had  disappeared  down 
throats  that  seemed  to  ha,ve  recovered  their 
former  capacity  for  both  swallowing  and  yelling, 
the  President,  Mr.  Thwing,  began  to  introduce 
the  speakers  of  the  day.  When  he  came  to  Mr. 
Hanna,  every  ear  was  alert. 

I  have  referred,  in  the  opening  of  this  sketch, 
to  President  Thwing's  remarks.  Mr.  Hanna's 
words  may  be  of  interest  to  the  reader. 

"It  was  with  great  reluctance,"  he  said,  after 
the  vociferous  greeting  had  subsided,  "that  I  was 


MARK    HANNA.  79 

prevailed  upon  to  come  out  here  and  make  a 
speech  before  all  you  college  men.  Your  Presi 
dent's  introduction  has  placed  me  under  great  em 
barrassment.  It  has  added  to  the  humidity  of  the 
atmosphere,"  continued  Mr.  Hanna,  wiping  the 
trickling  perspiration  from  his  broad  face. 

"Yes,  I  was  once  a  student  in  this  institution. 
The  question  came  up,  in  our  family  councils, 
whether  I  should  go  to  work,  or  go  to  college. 
I  wanted  to  go  to  work.  My  mother  said  I  should 
go  to  college.  So  I  went.  I  was  taking  a  course 
in  science.  There  were  three  of  us  in  the  class. 
The  other  two  left,  and  then  I  was  alone. 

"I  was  young,  innocent,  confiding.  One  day 
some  of  the  sophomores  induced  me  to  help  dis 
tribute  copies  of  a  burlesque  program  of  the  exer 
cises  of  the  junior  class.  I  stood  on  the  steps, 
handing  them  to  the  audience  as  they  passed  in. 
The  President  of  the  college  came  along.  He 
grasped  me  by  the  shoulder  and  asked,  'Young 
man,  what  are  you  doing?'  I  replied  that  I  was 
distributing  literature,  in  the  interests  of  educa 
tion  and  morality. 

"I  quit  college  soon  after  that.  The  faculty 
seemed  to  be  resigned  to  my  absence.  One  day 
the  President  met  me  on  the  street.  I  had  on  blue 
overalls,  and  was  hard  at  work.  He  looked  at 
me  with  an  expression  which  seemed  to  say,  Well, 


8o  MARKHANNA. 

I  guess  you  have  found  your  right  place !  And  I 
thought  so,  too.  I  liked  work  better  than  study. 
I  have  been  hard  at  work  ever  since.  Boys,  don't 
be  ashamed  of  work  or  overalls." 

It  has  been  several  years  since  Mr.  Hanna  has 
-worn  overalls,  but  he  has  kept  steadily  at  work. 
He  has  probably  never  missed  the  diploma  which 
he  failed  to  get.  But  he  now  wears  the  title  Doc 
tor  of  Laws,  bestowed  upon  him  by  Kenyon  Col 
lege.  His  friends  think  he  need  not  be  ashamed 
of  it.  They  say  that  he  has  earned  it.  But,  after 
all,  it  is  only  a  ribbon  on  the  lion's  neck. 

CLEVELAND  ITEMS. 

While  Mr.  Hanna  is  a  patriotic  American  with 
the  welfare  of  the  whole  country  at  heart,  he  is 
most  loyal  to  the  City  of  Cleveland  and  its  inter 
ests.  He  has  a  charming  home  on  the  West  Side, 
in  a  section  which  in  many  respects  is  the  most  de 
sirable  of  any  in  Cleveland  for  residence  purposes. 
Mr.  Hanna  was  a  pioneer  in  opening  up  this  sec 
tion,  and  has  been  active  in  promoting  general  im 
provements.  Here  he  spends  that  portion  of  the 
year  not  occupied  with  his  duties  as  Senator  at 
Washington. 

Mr.  Hanna's  business  interests  all  center  in 
Cleveland.  He  is  president  of  the  Union  National 
Bank,  president  of  the  Cleveland  City  Railway 


MARKHANNA.  81 

Company,  operating  eighty-five  miles  of  track ;  is 
prominently  identified  with  the  lake-carrying 
trade,  owning  many  vessels,  one  of  which  bears 
his  name;  is  connected  with  large  coal  and  iron 
interests  and  various  other  enterprises ;  and  is  re 
puted  to  be  worth  in  the  aggregate  several  mil 
lions  of  dollars. 

Mr.  Hanna  has  just  cause  to  be  proud  of  Cleve 
land  and  her  industries.  Cleveland  is  the  largest 
city  in  Ohio,  and  the  seventh  in  size  in  the  United 
States.  She  has  46  banks,  not  including  those  or 
ganized  under  the  building  laws,  of  which  there 
are  27.  More  than  150  railroad  trains  daily  are 
required,  besides  the  vessels,  to  handle  her  enor 
mous  traffic.  She  is  well  provided  with  schools 
and  churches,  and  is  the  home  of  Western  Reserve 
University  and  the  Case  School  of  Applied  Sci 
ence.  Her  iron  and  steel  industries  give  employ 
ment  to  thousands  of  laborers.  She  has  the  largest 
carbon  works  in  the  world,  the  largest  salt  works, 
largest  chewing  gum  factory,  largest  malleable 
iron  works  in  the  United  States,  the  largest  ar 
cade  building,  and  the  finest  soldiers'  monument 
west  of  New  York,  costing  $300,000. 

She  has  the  greatest  political  manager  in  the 
world,  but  Mr.  Hanna  does  not  mention  that. 

Cleveland  has  over  90  million  dollars  invested 


82  MARK    HAN  N  A. 

in  manufactures,  and  her  annual  output  is  about 
125  millions. 

She  has  magnificent  parks  and  boulevards,  and 
her  Euclid  avenue  has  long  been  famous  as  the 
finest  street  in  America. 

One  of  Cleveland's  most  notable  structures  is 
the  viaduct  connecting  the  east  and  west  sections 
of  the  city.  It  was  completed  in  1878,  and  cost 
$1,600,000. 

The  Garfield  Memorial  is  a  handsome  monu 
ment  to  the  memory  of  our  martyred  President, 
on  a  commanding  site  in  East  Cleveland,  not  far 
from  the  buildings  of  Western  Reserve  Uni 
versity. 

The  greatest  telescope  in  the  world,  the  Yerkes, 
belonging  to  the  University  of  Chicago,  was  con 
structed  in  Cleveland,  only  the  glass  for  the  lenses 
coming  from  abroad.  It  cost  over  half  a  million 
dollars. 

Cleveland  is  the  largest  iron  ore  market  in  the 
world.  The  enormous  iron  ore  industry  of  Lake 
Superior,  and  its  distribution  to  the  world,  center 
in  Cleveland.  It  represents  an  investment  of 
nearly  200  millions  of  dollars.  Next  to  Clyde, 
England,  Cleveland  is  the  largest  shipbuilding 
center  in  the  world.  The  tonnage  entering  the 
port  has  in  a  single  year  equalled  that  of  Liver 
pool.  If  the  recent  experiment  of  an  ocean-going 


MARKHANNA.  83 

line  of  steamers  from  Chicago  shall  prove  success 
ful,  there  is  no  saying  what  greatness  Cleveland 
may  develop  in  shipping. 

MR.  HANNA'S  SHIPPING  INTERESTS. 

When  Mr.  Hanna  became  interested  in  the  ves 
sel  business  on  the  Great  Lakes,  thirty  years  ago, 
that  business  was  in  its  infancy.  The  largest  ves 
sel  in  the  ore  trade  at  that  time  carried  only  600 
tons.  Now  there  are  steel  steamers  plying  be 
tween  the  mines  of  Lake  Superior  and  the  Lake 
Erie  ports  which  carry  6,000  tons.  The  river 
above  and  below  Detroit,  through  which  passes 
all  this  traffic,  has  become  a  busy  thoroughfare. 
Puffing  steam  tugs,  the  little  leviathans  of  our 
modern  waters,  ply  back  and  forth  between  Lake 
Erie  and  Lake  Huron,  each  one  towing  one  or 
more  sailing  vessels.  Freight  and  passenger 
steamers  alternate  with  these.  It  is  a  procession 
of  the  world's  industry.  The  vessels  reported  as 
passing  Detroit  in  one  day,  in  the  height  of  the 
season,  number  above  one  hundred. 

Think  of  it !  Here  is  lumber  from  the  sawmills 
of  Michigan ;  iron  and  copper  ore  from  the  mines 
of  Lake  Michigan  and  Lake  Superior;  coal  for 
Chicago  and  Duluth,  from  the  mines  of  Ohio  and 
Pennsylvania ;  stone  from  Lake  Erie  quarries,  to 
be  used  in  the  great  buildings  of  Detroit,  Chicago 


84  MARKHANNA. 

and  other  western  cities ;  structural  steel  from  the 
mills  of  Ohio  and  Pennsylvania,  for  bridges,  ship 
building  and  the  business  blocks  of  great  cities ; 
provisions,  oil,  merchandise  of  every  sort ;  rep 
resenting  almost  every  department  of  human  in 
dustry. 

In  all  this  vast  movement  of  commerce  Mr. 
Hanna  has  played  and  still  plays  a  prominent 
part.  The  interests  of  M.  A.  Hanna  &  Co.  are 
among  the  largest  on  the  Lakes. 

The  immense  growth  of  the  shipping  business 
on  the  Lakes  has  been  due  in  no  small  degree  to 
Government  aid  and  encouragement.  At  the  ex 
pense  of  Government,  harbors  have  been  im 
proved,  channels  deepened,  lighthouses  estab 
lished,  canals  and  locks  constructed ;  and  through 
legislation  protecting  American  shipping  from 
competition  with  Canadian  vessels,  the  American 
vessel  owners  of  the  Lakes  have  been  encour 
aged  and  supported  until  now  the  building  and 
managing  of  the  Lake  vessels  gives  employment 
to  thousands  of  men,  and  brings  prosperity  to 
thousands  of  American  homes. 

THE  SHIP  SUBSIDY  BILL. 

It  was  but  natural  that  Mr.  Hanna,  seeing  the 
growth  of  the  shipping  interests  on  the  Great 
Lakes,  through  the  encouragement  of  Govern- 


MARK   HANNA.  85 

ment,  should  have  become  interested  in  strength 
ening  the  shipping  interests  of  the  coast.  Mr. 
Hanna  is  a  most  patriotic  American.  He  does 
not  write  poems  of  patriotism,  in  fact,  he  does  not 
read  them.  If  he  did,  he  would  admire  the  pa 
triotism,  not  the  poetry. 

But  Mr.  Hanna  does  what  poets  cannot  do.  He 
inaugurates  and  manages  vast  industrial  and  com 
mercial  enterprises,  which  shall  make  our  coun 
try  prosperous  and  happy,  and  worthy  to  be  writ 
ten  about  by  poets  and  other  dreamers  of  dreams. 

Mr.  Hanna  is  not  content  to  have  American 
flags  on  the  flag-poles  of  our  public  parks,  and  on 
the  schoolhouses  of  the  land.  He  wants  to  see 
them  waving  from  the  masts  of  vessels  all  along 
the  Atlantic  coast.  He  wants  to  see  them  waving 
in  the  blue  sky  over  the  Great  Lakes,  from  Michi 
gan  to  New  York  State ;  fluttering  above  the  roll 
ing  waves  of  the  Atlantic  and  Pacific,  carrying 
the  story  of  a  great  nation's  prosperity  to  foreign 
lands.  He  wants  to  see  the  earth  girdled  with 
American  flags,  floating  from  the  masts  of  Amer 
ican  ships ;  so  that  wherever  the  Sun-god  Phoe 
bus  drives  in  his  golden  car  he  shall  be  saluted 
by  this  fluttering  emblem. 

The  Ship  Subsidy  Bill  represented  Mr.  Han- 
na's  plan  for  realizing  this  consummation  so  de 
voutly  to  be  wished.  Undoubtedly  Mr. 


86  MARKHANNA. 

was  sincere  and  unselfish  in  his  advocacy  of  this 
measure.  Certainly  he  had  no  axe  of  his  own  to 
grind.  Whatever  faults  the  bill  may  have  had,  its 
avowed  and  unmistakable  object  was  to  build  up 
American  commercial  interests,  on  lines  which 
had  long  been  followed  in  other  enterprises  as 
well  as  by  other  nations. 

"The  tonnage  under  the  American  flag  in  the 
foreign  trade,  in  1861,  was  more  than  three 
times  larger  than  in  1900,"  said  Mr.  Hanna  in  his 
Senate  speech:  "yet,  our  foreign  commerce  is 
fully  four  times  larger  now  than  then." 

Here  is  a  fact, — surely  a  deplorable  fact.  This 
is  not  a  theory,  it  is  a  condition.  Facing  this  con 
dition,  Mr.  Hanna  proposed  that  something  ought 
to  be  done.  We  can  all  agree  with  him  on  that 
point ;  and  as  to  what  ought  to  be  done,  we  can 
trust  the  assembled  wisdom  and  experience  of 
Congress  to  determine  that.  Partisan  politics  are 
out  of  place,  in  the  discussion  of  this  question.  It 
is  one  which  concerns  the  interests  of  all  citizens 
alike. 

Government  encouragement  and  aid  do  not  nec 
essarily  mean  monopoly  and  robbery  on  the  part 
of  the  interests  involved.  In  the  Lake  Trade, 
rates  of  transportation  have  declined  in  proportion 
as  the  industry  has  grown.  Thirty  years  ago,  the 
rate  on  ore  from  Lake  Superior  was  three  to  three 


MARK   HANNA.  87 

and  a  half  dollars  a  gross  ton.  The  rate  today  is 
from  sixty  cents  to  one  dollar.  And  yet,  sailors  and 
dock  men  are  receiving  larger  wages  than  they 
did  thirty  years  ago.  All  products  in  which  these 
ores  are  used  are  cheaper  now  than  then.  The 
American  people  are  richer  because  of  this  growth 
of  the  Lake  vessel  interests.  These  are  facts,  and 
they  ought  not  to  be  lost  sight  of,  in  any  discus 
sion  of  this  subject. 

THE  GREAT  AMERICAN  EMPIRE. 

Mr.  Hanna  has  been  accused  of  representing 
Imperialism  in  America.  So  far  as  an  Impe 
rialism  like  that  of  ancient  Rome  or  some  modern 
European  countries  is  concerned,  the  charge  is 
absurd  and  groundless  But  there  is  another  sort 
of  Imperialism  which  Mr.  Hanna,  or  any  other 
man,  ought  not  to  be  ashamed  of  representing; 
that  is,  the  growing  commercial  supremacy  of 
what  Chief  Justice  Marshall  once  called  the 
American  Empire. 

The  United  States  is  steadily  gaining  the  lead 
in  manufactures  of  all  kinds.  The  wide  world  is 
her  market.  Gov.  Shaw,  of  Iowa,  states  that  the 
cost  of  railway  transportation  in  this  country  is 
one-third  less  than  that  of  Europe,  and  quotes 
statistics  from  England  and  Germany.  This 
means  advantage  to  our  manufacturers.  Amer- 


88  MARKHANNA. 

ican  enterprise  is  opening  markets  for  American 
goods  wherever  ships  can  carry  them.  Anything 
that  will  increase  our  merchant  marine  will  cer 
tainly  be  an  advantage  to  the  entire  country. 

It  is  a  picture  to  inspire  one  with  poetry  and 
eloquence, — this  Great  American  Empire  rising 
like  a  dream  out  of  the  wilderness  of  this  west-: 
ern  continent  in  so  brief  a  period.  The  dawn 
ing  of  the  twentieth  century  sees  this  new  na 
tion  leading  the  nations  of  the  world.  It  is  the 
Empire  of  the  People. 

In  the  dark  ages  of  the  past,  Imperialism  meant 
the  rule  of  one,  and  that  one  oftener  bad  than 
good.  The  Imperialism  that  is  growing  and 
shaping  itself  in  this  our  great  American  Com 
monwealth  is  the  rule  of  a  great  and  dominant 
People. 

To  this  superior  race,  half  savage  races  must 
be  as  children,  submitting  to  its  beneficent  do 
minion.  Shall  we  fear  the  outcome?  Shall  we 
accuse  this  People  of  tyranny  and  despotism? 

The  march  of  destiny  cannot  be  stayed.     Fate 
hath  pronounced  her  Word.     Here  in  this  new: 
world  a  new  Empire  shall  arise  and  flourish ;  the 
Empire  of  the  People. 

Its  flag  shall  float  above  the  islands  of  the 
farthest  seas.  Dusky  tribes  shall  sit  beneath  the 
shadow  of  its  Eagle's  wings.  Its  arms  of  steel 


MARKHANNA.  89 

shall  clash  for  human  brotherhood.  Not  slaves, 
not  victims,  shall  its  vanquished  foes  become ;  but 
children,  younger  brethren,  in  a  vast  eternal  fam- 
ily. 

The  People's  Empire!  Let  it  grow  and 
strengthen !  No  chance  or  accident  of  birth  shall 
open  gates  to  power  or  honor.  Natural  power, 
talent,  wisdom,  skill,  shall  rule. 

THE  CORPORATION  AND  ITS  MEN. 

One  of  the  most  common  charges  brought 
against  Mr.  Hanna  is  that  he  is  the  friend  and 
patron  of  trusts  and  corporations.  Those  who 
know  Mr.  Hanna  have  learned  that  he  is  no 
more  the  friend  of  corporations  than,  he  is  the 
friend  of  the  workingmen  employed  by  corpora 
tions.  There  is  a  certain  class  of  demagogues 
who  either  do  not  see  this  fact,  or  who*  dishon 
estly  ignore  it  and  conceal  it. 

The  fact  is,  industrial  organization  is  the 
friend  and  helper  of  the  working  man. 

It  is  not  the  friend  of  the  lazy  and  the  vicious, 
the  blatant  talker  and  the  loud  reformer;  but  it 
serves  the  workers  who  are  organized  under  its 
banner,  and  leads  them  to  victory  in  the  battle 
of  industry. 

These  officers,  these  generals  and  captains  of 


90  MARKHANNA. 

industry,  are  the  leaders  of  the  rank  and  file,  who 
could  not  fight  without  them. 

The  day  of  military  conquest  has  gone  by.  In 
this  age  we  have  occasional  skirmishes  to  settle 
some  petty  quarrel.  But  the  day  of  the  Caesars, 
Alexanders,  Napoleons,  has  gone,  never  to  re 
turn. 

The  battle  of  today  is  the  battle  of  Industry, 
the  warfare  of  man  against  want,  famine,  and  the 
elements  of  nature.  Your  workmen  are  the  le 
gions  who  march  and  fight.  They  cannot  fight 
without  officers  and  leaders.  A  leaderless  army 
is  a  mob. 

In  the  old  order  of  competition,  these  regi 
ments  were  pitted  against  each  other.  The  shoe- 
makers  of  one  regiment,  for  instance,  were  wag 
ing  battle  against  the  shoe-makers  of  another. 
This  order  of  things  is  now  rapidly  giving1  place 
to  a  more  rational  mode  of  warfare. 

These  regiments  of  industrial  soldiers  are 
uniting  under  one  common  standard,  one  com 
mon  leader.  They  are  presenting  a  united  front 
to  the  enemy.  Before  their  solid  ranks  the  de 
mon-legions  of  hunger  and  want  are  fast  retreat 
ing. 

Shall  we  denounce  this  coalition,  discharge 
and  execute  our  officers,  and  as  a  blind  and  lead 
erless  mob  set  out  to  fight  our  battles? 


MARK   HANNA.  91 

These  Captains  of  Industry  have  good  pay,  as 
is  their  right.  Your  privates  must  not  demand 
the  pay  of  generals  and  colonels.  They  cannot 
obtain  it,  even  by  discharging  these  generals  and 
colonels.  Armies  that  mutiny  and  rebel  usually 
end  in  dissolution  and  destruction. 

If  any  one  supposes  that  I  expect  to  convert 
all  Socialists  to  these  views,  he  is  very  much  mis 
taken.  Too  many  Socialists  are  so  not  from  rea 
son,  but  rather  from  lack  of  reason.  They  are 
swayed  by  sentiment,  if  nothing  worse.  Many 
of  them  are  bigoted  and  intolerant,  full  of  carp 
ing  and  denunciation,  and  no  statement  of  rea 
son  appeals  to  them.  Such,,  when  they  have  ex 
hausted  their  every  argument,  will  still  point  to 
their  own  poverty,  and  shriek,  "Here  is  an  in 
dubitable  and  indisputable  fact.  I  am  poor, 
Jones  is  rich.  Why  should  this  be  so?" 

That  there  are  good  and  benevolent  people, 
even  people  of  substantial  means,  who  are  Social 
ists,  I  do  not  deny.  That  there  are  sane  things 
in  the  doctrine  of  Socialism,  I  do  not  deny.  But 
that  Socialism  is  sound  as  a  philosophical  system 
I  cannot  believe.  Its  alleged  benefits  would  be 
offset  by  so  many  positive  evils,  that  it  could  not 
improve  the  general  condition  of  society.  Her 
bert  Spencer  has  clearly  stated  most  of  these  evils 
in  his  "Plea  for  Liberty." 


92  M  A  R  K   H  A  N  N  A. 

Socialism  is  despotism.  In  it,  the  individual 
would  have  no  freedom.  If  unbridled  individ 
ualism  may  lead  to  tyranny  and  oppression,  what 
might  not  Socialism  lead  to,  with  its  ponderous 
machinery  of  government,  its  endless  bureaus, 
the  spoil  of  political  knaves,  its  domination  of 
the  individual  on  every  hand  by  the  armed  forces 
of  the  state?  Surely,  the  larger  freedom  which 
we  all  long  for  does  not  lie  in  that  direction. 

A  PEN-PICTURE  BY  MR.  WHITE. 

A  sketch  of  Mr.  Hanna  by  William  Allen 
White,  printed  in  McClure's  Magazine  for  No 
vember,  1900,  is  so  brilliant  and  interesting  that 
generous  selections  from  it  are  given  here,  with 
the  permission  of  the  S.  S.  McClure  Co.,  N.  Y. : 

"Mr.  Herbert  Spencer  holds  that  life  is  a  se 
ries  of  relations,  and  that  man  and  the  other  crea 
tures  of  the  earth  are  the  reflections  of  their  en 
vironment.  Assuming  the  truth  of  Spencer's  con 
tention,  it  may  be  instructive  to  know  something 
of  Marcus  Alonzo  Hanna's  habitat.  Cleveland, 
Ohio,  like  Falmouth,  'is  a  fine  town,  with  ships  in 
the  bay.'  The  smoke  of  a  thousand  furnaces 
stains  the  sky,  and  the  clang  of  iron  with  the  tin 
kle  of  gongs  forms  the  din  of  a  restless  com 
merce.  It  is  a  town  of  workers.  Men  talk  busi 
ness  at  the  clubs  and  talk  shop  in  the  saloons; 


MARKHANNA.  93 

they  take  their  business  to  bed  with  them  o'  nights. 
There  are  beautiful  homes  on  broad  avenues,  that 
lead  away  from  the  lowlands  where  forges  glow. 
There  are  decent  public  buildings  scattered  along 
the  streets  where  the  tall,  well-designed  business 
houses  do  most  congregate ;  and  there  are  pretty 
parks  and  respectable  statues'  and  appropriate 
monuments  in  the  wide  public  squares.  The 
homes,  the  public  buildings,  the  commercial 
strongholds,  the  parks  and  their  adornments,  are 
preeminently  up  to  date.  They  are  clearly  pos 
sessed  of  'every  modern  convenience.'  They 
would  rent  well.  Down  toward  the  mouth  of  one 
of  the  city  caverns,  before  it  spills  its  human 
stream  into  the  industrial  cauldron  that  swirls  be 
low  the  hills,  stands  a  square,  red-stone  build- " 
ing.  In  the  sixth  floor  of  this  building  is  a  suite 
of  rooms.  On  the  door  entering  this  suite  is  the 
legend : 

M.  A.  HANNA  &  CO., 
COAL,  IRON  ORE, 

AND 
PIG  IRON. 

The  inner  room  of  this  suite  is  a  large  room. 
On  the  walls  of  the  room,  which  is  finished  in 
mahogany,  are  a  number  of  photographs  of  Han- 
na's  home  under  the  elm  trees,  surrounded  by 
grass  and  flowers ;  also  photographs  of  the  mem- 


94  MARKHANNA. 

bers  of  the  Republican  National  Committee,  and 
a  photograph  of  the  interior  of  a  power-house, 
where  four  huge  engines — all  trim  and  solid  and 
mechanically  eloquent  of  power — stand  waiting 
the  touch  of  the  master  to  release  their  energy. 
The  photographs  look  down  on  a  heavy  mahog 
any  director's  table  with  massive  round  legs.  On 
the  table  is  a  litter  of  blue  prints — engines  and 
architects'  designs — embryo  boats  and  power 
houses,  and  smoke-stacks,  and  many  strange 
cross-sections  and  ground  views,  and  perspectives 
of  industrial  edifices.  Solid  chairs  of  nondescript 
design  sit  near  the  edge  of  a  crimson  rug.  In  a 
corner  near  the  broad,  deep  window  stands  a  mas 
sive  desk.  At  the  desk,  leaning  heavily  on  a  clut 
ter  of  letters  and  documents,  is  a  stocky,  long- 
bodied  man,  with  his  small  feet  hooked  desper 
ately  to  the  supports  of  a  pivoting  chair.  He 
whirls  about  nervously,  and  his  quizzical,  humor 
ous  smile  animates  the  place  and  humanizes  it. 
Hanna's  personality  exudes  from  everything.  The 
photographs  of  the  great  engines  become  vitally 
a  part  of  him.  The  blue  prints  seem  to  crystallize 
themselves  into  him.  The  politicians'  faces,  the 
chairs,  the  table  with  the  shapeless  legs,  all  in  an 
instant  become  living,  component  parts  of  this 
man's  existence.  The  room,  the  building,  the 
town  on  the  inland  sea — they  are  parts  of  him  and 


MARK   HANNA.  95 

products  of  him,  and  he  is  a  part  and  product  of 
them. 

Hanna  is  an  American  type.  Five  years  ago  he 
was  engrossed  in  business.  A  crisis  occurred  in 
the  country's  history — partly  of  his  own  making. 
He  sloughed  off  business.  He  became  a  political 
leader,  and — as  patriots  go — a  patriot.  By  sheer 
mechanical  force,  using  money,  the  one  lever 
which  God  gave  him  mastery  of,  Hanna  set  mil 
lions  of  flags  to  waving,  and  manufactured  and 
distributed,  securely  wrapped  in  packages  of  as 
sorted  sizes  ready  for  immediate  consumption, 
more  lofty  ideals  of  civic  integrity  than  the  coun 
try  had  consumed  before  in  a  score  of  years.  A 
weaker  man  than  Hanna,  with  more  emotion  in 
his  make-up,  might  have  felt  more  deeply  and 
perhaps  more  intelligently,  but  only  a  man  like 
Hanna  could  have  acted  in  the  time  of  stress  so 
wisely.  With  the  cold,  practical  energy  of  a  trip 
hammer,  Hanna  converted  dollars  into  patriot 
ism,  and  saved  the  nation  from  calamity.  While 
he  was  at  his  work  men  reviled  him,  bullied  him, 
abused  him — just  as  they  do  today. 

"Which  knowledge  vexes  him  a  space ; 
But  while  reproof  around  him  rings, 

He  turns  a  keen,  untroubled  face 

Home  to  the  instant  need  of  things." 


96  MARK   HANNA. 

The  story  of  his  life  epitomizes  the  biographies 
of  thousands  of  other  successful  Americans.  It 
is  the  dramatization  of  energy — the  romance  of 
industrial  achievement.  In  another  one  hundred 
years,  perhaps,  such  romances  will  seem  as  re 
mote  from  the  life  then  living  as  stories  of  our 
Western  border,  bloody  with  Indian  wars,  ap 
pear  today.  Opportunity  may  not  always  stand 
knocking  on  the  gate  for  American  youths.  But 
at  any  rate,  the  story  of  Hanna's  rise  is  a  brave 
tale,  and  one  well  worth  the  telling, 

HANNA'S  EARLY  BUSINESS  EXPE 
RIENCE. 

Hanna  was  born  in  Ohio  sixty-three  years  ago. 
Of  his  ancestry  it  is  sufficient  to  say  that  he  is  a 
member  of  the  Scotch-Irish  society  of  Philadel 
phia,  in  full  communion  and  good  standing.  His 
grandfather  was  bound  out  to  a  Quaker,  and  for 
the  one  hundred  years  last  past  the  Hannas  have 
been  Quakers.  In  1852  Hanna's  father  moved  to 
Cleveland,  and  brought  his  seven  children  along. 
The  elder  Hanna  started  a  grocery  store,  trading 
more  or  less  in  a  wholesale  way,  on  the  lakes,  par 
ticularly  in  the  Lake  Superior  country.  Young 
Mark  plodded  through  the  public  schools  and  got 
enough  education  to  admit  him  to  the  Western 
Reserve  University.  But  in  1857,  after  a  year  in 


MARK   HANNA.  97 

college,  he  returned  to  Cleveland  to  learn  the 
grocery  business,  which  was  growing,  and  had 
become  exclusively  a  wholesale  concern,  with  cus 
tomers  all  over  the  lake  region.  A  year  or  so 
later  the  elder  Hanna  sickened,  and  the  manage 
ment  of  the  store  fell  on  the  boy,  Mark.  It  was  a 
heavy  load  to  carry  for  a  young  man,  barely  past 
his  majority,  but  the  responsibility  put  iron  into 
him,  and  gave  him  the  luck  stone  of  his  life — the 
habit  of  industry.  It  schooled  him,  as  no  uni 
versity  can,  in  the  use  of  grit  and  self-reliance  and 
courage.  It  made  a  man  of  him  at  the  time  of  life 
when  other  youths  are  addicted  to  the  picnic  habit. 
In  1862  the  father  died,  and  the  young  man  took 
charge  of  the  business  for  the  estate.  When  he 
closed  up  the  store  successfully  five  years  later, 
he  knew  all  about  the  grocery  business,  and  his 
energy  was  proverbial  in  the  town  of  Cleveland. 
He  was  thirty  years  old  when  he  married,  and 
went  into  business  with  his  father-in-law,  Daniel 
P.  Rhodes.  The  firm,  Rhodes  &  Co.,  dealt  in  coal, 
iron  ore,  and  pig  iron.  That  was  a  generation 
ago.  Young  Hanna  threw  himself  into  that  busi 
ness  with  passionate  enthusiasm.  He  learned  the 
iron  trade  from  the  bottom,  omitting  no  circum 
stance.  He  was  insatiably  curious.  He  had  an 
artist's  thirst  to  know  the  how  of  things.  He 
learned  about  coal  mines  and  bought  coal  lands, 


98  MARKHANNA. 

learned  about  ore  and  bought  mines,  learned  about 
boats  and  bought  boats.  Then  he  took  his  iron 
and  his  coal,  and  he  built  the  first  steel  boats  that 
ever  plowed  the  lakes.  He  established  foundries 
and  forges  and  smelters.  Men  worked  for  him 
from  Western  Pennsylvania  to  the  base  of  the 
Rockies.  He  knew  his  men  and  he  knew  the 
work  they  did.  He  knew  the  value  of  a  day's 
work,  and  he  got  it — he  also  paid  for  it.  Where 
there  was  labor  trouble,  the  contest  was  short  and 
decisive.  Hanna  met  the  men  himself.  Either 
things  were  right  or  they  were  wrong.  If  he 
thought  they  were  wrong,  he  fixed  them  on  the 
spot.  If  he  believed  they  were  right,  the  work 
went  on.  In  the  early  seventies  the  miners  in  the 
Rhodes  &  Co.'s  mines  formed  a  union.  Hanna 
studied  the  union  as  he  studied  mines  and  ores 
and  ships.  He  mastered  its  details,  got  the  hang 
of  it,  and  got  up  another  union — a  union  of  em 
ployers.  Then  when  the  men  at  a  mine  had  trou 
bles,  they  conferred  not  with  the  mine  operator, 
but  with  the  mine  operators'  union.  The  two 
unions  got  along  without  friction,  until  the  walk 
ing  delegate  found  himself  deposed,  after  which 
Hanna's  union  dissolved.  But  the  mining  oper 
ators'  union  gave  the  first  public  recognition  to 
organize  labor  which  it  had  received  at  that  time, 
and  the  invention  was  Hanna's.  It  was  a  practi- 


MARK   HANNA.  99 

cal  thing.  After  the  dissolution  of  the  mine  op 
erators'  union  there  was  trouble.  A  number  of 
arrests  followed  some  shaft  burning.  Hanna  went 
down  to  Western  Ohio  to  prosecute  the  men  un 
der  arrest.  They  were  defended  by  a  young  man 
named  McKinley — William  McKinley — and  he 
did  his  work  so  well  that  most  of  the  miners  went 
scot-free,  and  those  convicted  got  short  terms. 
Hanna  took  a  liking  to  the  young  lawyer  whose 
tactics  had  won  the  legal  battle  which  Hanna  had 
lost.  A  friendship  began  which  is  now  famous 
in  contemporaneous  history,  Hanna  had  won  his 
point  in  the  strike.  Perhaps  he  was  in  a  mellow 
expansive  mood  which  may  have  tempered  his  ad 
miration  for  the  attorney  for  the  strikers. 

HANNA  BRANCHES  OUT. 

The  regularity  with  which  Hanna  won  in  his 
labor  contests  gave  him  business  prestige.  He 
says  that  he  never  let  the  men  deal  fairer  with 
him  than  he  dealt  with  them.  His  office  door 
swings  inward  as  easily  on  its  hinges  for  the  dol- 
lar-a-day  man  as  for  the  superintendent.  But 
they  say  in  Cleveland  that  there  is  an  automatic 
spring  on  it  for  the  chronic  grumbler,  for  the 
shirker,  and  for  the  walking  delegate.  The  door 
swings  out  upon  these  men  with  force  and  em 
phasis. 


ioo  MARKHANNA. 

For  Hanna  is  a  hard  worker.  He  asks  none 
of  his  employees  to  work  as  hard  as  he  does.  He 
has  the  intelligence  which  makes  work  easy  and 
increases  the  capacity  to  do  work.  Genius  is 
something  of  that  sort.  Hanna's  secret  is  system. 
After  he  had  reduced  mining  to  a  system,  he  add 
ed  shipping,  then  he  reduced  that  to  a  system  and 
took  on  shipbuilding.  Reducing  that  to  its  low 
est  terms,  where  the  machinery  works  smoothly, 
Hanna  built  a  street  railway — made  the  cars  of 
his  coal  and  iron,  and  the  rails  of  his  steel.  When 
he  came  to  man  that  railway — the  Cleveland  City 
Street  Railway — he  had  reduced  the  labor  prob 
lem  to  such  an  exact  science  that  there  has  never 
been  a  strike  on  that  system,  although  the  cars 
of  other  lines  in  Cleveland  are  tied  up  frequently. 
About  this  time  he  took  a  fancy  to  the  theatrical 
business.  He  bought  the  town  opera  house  and 
began  studying  the  gentle  art  of  making  friends 
with  the  theatrical  stars  of  the  world.  He  learned 
the  business  of  friendship  thus  as  thoroughly  as 
he  learned  the  iron  and  coal  and  steel  and  ship  and 
railway  business.  He  omitted  no  detail ;  he  went 
the  whole  length — put  on  a  play  by  Mr.  Howells, 
and  invited  the  author  out  to  see  the  job  done 
properly.  Today  Hanna  has  the  friendship  of 
men  like  Jefferson,  Irving,  Francis  Wilson,  Rob- 
son,  Crane — all  of  them,  and  the  best  of  the  play- 


MARK    HAN  N  A.  101 

wrights.  They  know  the  appreciative  eyes  that 
laugh  so  easily,  and  he  knows  all  the  actors' 
stories  and  can  find  the  paths  that  lead  to  their 
hearts.  In  the  early  eighties — apparently  by  way 
of  diversion  or  because  Satan  finds  some  evil  work 
for  idle  hands  to  do — when  the  coal,  iron  ore,  pig 
iron,  steel,  shipping,  railway,  and  theatrical  busi 
ness  became  nerve-wracking  monotony,  Hanna 
started  a  bank.  He  took  the  presidency  of  it,  and 
devoured  the  minutiae  of  the  new  business  raven 
ously.  When  he  was  watching  the  wheels  go 
around,  looking  at  the  levers  and  cogs,  and  mak 
ing  the  bank  part  of  his  life,  Hanna  began  to  no 
tice  remarkable  movements  in  the  works.  Some 
years  the  fly-wheel  would  not  revolve.  At  other 
times  it  whirled  too  rapidly.  He  went  through 
the  machinery  with  hammer  and  screws,  but  he 
found  that  the  trouble  lay  outside  the  bank.  He 
traced  it  to  iron  ore,  through  that  to  coal,  and 
still  it  eluded  him.  The  trouble  was  outside  the 
things,  he  knew.  It  was  in  the  lodestone  of  poli 
tics. 

GOES  INTO  POLITICS. 

So  Hanna  went  into  politics.  In  1880  he  organ 
ized  the  Cleveland  Business  Men's  Marching 
Club.  The  idea  was  a  new  one,  and  it  took  all 
over  the  country.  That  was  the  year  when  the 


102  MARK   HANNA. 

tariff  began  to  assume  proportions  as  a  national 
issue,  and  being  a  dealer  in  coal  and  iron  and  steel 
ships,  Hanna  made  a  discovery.  Heretofore  busi 
ness  had  been  business,  and  politics  politics ;  the 
hypothesis  that  business  and  politics  were  allied 
was  a  theory  in  the  nebular  state,  floating  around 
in  class-rooms  and  debating  societies.  Hanna  con 
gealed  the  theory  into  fact.  The  business  man  in 
politics  was  Hanna's  invention  twenty  years  ago. 
During  the  eighties  he  carried  a  torch  in  many 
parades ;  but  the  oil  that  leaked  from  the  can  lu 
bricated  his  mind,  for  he  ground  up  the  facts  of 
politics  rapidly.  He  began  at  the  ward  caucus, 
and  for  ten  years  was  a  factor  in  his  ward  and  in 
his  county  and  in  his  State.  He  took  up  politics 
as  a  branch  of  his  business.  It  was  a  side  issue — 
but  shipbuilding  was,  for  that  matter,  and  street 
railways.  Hanna  has  a  dozen  sides.  In  1888 
Hanna  had  learned  the  business  of  politics  well 
enough  to  go  into  the  National  market  with  a 
product.  In  the  National  Convention  which  nomi 
nated  Benjamin  Harrison  for  his  first  term, 
Hanna  appeared  as  John  Sherman's  political  man 
ager.  He  was  to  Sherman  then  what  he  was  to 
McKinley  in  1896.  When  Sherman  lost,  Hanna 
went  on  the  Advisory  Council  of  the  National 
Committee.  He  learned  how  the  machinery  of 
National  politics  runs ;  what  its  fly-wheels  do ; 


MARK   HANNA.  103 

what  its  pulleys  move ;  where  to  oil  it ;  and  where 
the  power  is  generated.  His  insatiable  curiosity, 
that  made  him  master  of  other  great  trades,  made 
him  adept  in  what  is  known  as  practical  politics. 
During  the  eight  years  that  followed  Hanna's 
entrance  into  National  politics,  he  absorbed  cer 
tain  facts  about  the  relations  of  business  and  pol 
itics.  Without  knowing  where  his  greed  for  facts 
was  leading  him,  Hanna  became  an  amateur  po 
litical  scientist.  He  knew  none  of  the  rules  of  the 
game  as  the  books  laid  them  down ;-  the  theories  of 
scholars  were  unfathomed  in  his  reckonings.  But, 
as  the  Yankees  say,  he  "sensed  a  scheme"  of  the 
relations  of  things  in  the  worlds  of  business  and 
politics,  and  unconsciously  this  scheme  took  pos 
session  of  him. 

Now,  a  man  whose  business  leads  him  to  the 
daily  contemplation  of  men  working  in  their  un 
dershirts  is  not  going  to  sit  down  and  dream  up 
an  economic  system  for  a  world  full  of  men  in 
Nile-green  neckties  and  lavender  trousers.  The 
spectacle  of  human  perspiration  is  not  so  entirely 
shocking  to  a  man  of  Hanria's  habits  and  antece 
dents  that  any  scheme  of  his  would  eliminate  it 
from  human  existence.  So  the  idea  that  got  in 
Hanna's  head  was  not  particularly  Utopian.  It 
was  simply  a  scheme  to  provide  for  more  work, 
more  sweat,  more  business,  and  more  dividends — 


104  MARK    H  ANN  A. 

and  that  wasn't  the  least  of  Hanna's  considera 
tion — by  adjusting  the  tariff  on  coal,  iron,  pig 
iron,  and  a  few  thousand  other  articles  too  nu 
merous  to  mention;  also  the  establishment  of  a 
government  subsidy  for  American  shipbuilders. 
Incidentally  Hanna  saw  that  the  currency  shaft  of 
the  National  works  was  crooked  and  wobbly,  and 
needed  straightening.  Now  this  was  not  an  ec 
static  dream.  But  it  had  a  vital  advantage  over 
the  vision  of  Mr.  Bellamy  and  the  Utopians. 
Hanna's  plan  would  work. 

In  the  industrial  depression  from  1893  to  1895, 
when  the  mines  and  the  furnaces  and  the  ships 
were  idle,  Hanna  had  time  for  meditation.  But 
the  desire  to  make  his  scheme  of  political  science 
a  fact  was  afire  in  him ;  and  instead  of  going  into 
a  rhapsody  at  the  beauty  of  his  dream,  Hanna 
spent  his  hours  of  meditation  forging  his  dream 
into  reality  in  an  eminently  practical  way. 

HANNA  AND  McKINLEY. 

In  the  meantime,  for  twenty  years,  his  friend 
ship  for  the  young  lawyer  who  defended  the 
miners  had  been  growing.  He  grappled  it  to  him 
as  he  grappled  his  business  ambition — with  all  his 
heart  and  mind.  It  became  as  much  a  part  of  him 
as  the  mines  and  the  ships  and  the  steel  things  that 
he  loved.  McKinley  satisfied  something  in  Hanna. 


MARK   HANNA.  105 

The  Canton  lawyer  was  industrious.  He  was 
clean.  He  was  reliable.  He  was  ambitious.  Han- 
na's  friendship  displayed  these  virtues  in  the 
market  of  public  esteem,  and  held  them  at  their 
par  value.  In  1896  Hanna's  energy  incorporated 
McKinley,  and  every  business  house  in  the  United 
States,  from  Wall  Street  to  the  carpenter's  shop 
on  the  alley,  took  stock.  Hanna  promoted  the 
candidacy  of  McKinley  before  the  St.  Louis  Con 
vention.  He  put  in  that  campaign,  which  ended 
in  the  St.  Louis  Convention,  every  trained  faculty 
which  had  made  him  a  successful  captain  of  trade. 
The  outcome  was  interesting.  And  American 
politicians — generally  a  slipshod  lot — who  depend 
much  on  brass  bands  and  claqueing  and  flag  wav 
ing  and  oratory  and  beating  of  tom-toms  to  swarm 
their  bees,  were  astounded  to  see  a  campaigner  use 
the  calculating,  exact,  business-like  methods  of  a 
general  manager  of  a  railroad.  Every  Republi 
can  Presidential  candidate  sent  out  letters  by  the 
bushel.  Hanna  sent  McKinley's  letters  out  by 
the  peck.  But  he  picked  his  correspondents  with 
the  care  that  he  picked  the  officers  for  his  lake 
ships.  It  was  Hanna's  purpose  to  give  the  pre 
ferred  stock  in  the  McKinley  syndicate  only  to 
men  of  commercial  honor  and  business  standing 
and  political  capacity.  The  whisperer,  the  Janus- 
face,  the  blow-hard,  and  the  promiser  were  per- 


io6  MARK   HANNA. 

mitted  to  speculate  if  they  chose,  but  only  upon 
the  general  prosperity  series.  The  St.  Louis 
Convention  was  a  meeting  of  a  large  board  of  di 
rectors  in  a  business  concern.  All  emotionalism 
was  as  remote  from  the  constitution  of  that  body 
as  a  sky-rocket  from  a  table  of  statistics.  Hanna 
had  planned  the  syndicate,  he  had  promoted  it, 
he  had  made  it  go.  He  didn't  know  who  would 
make  the  motions,  nor  who  would  write  up  the 
minutes,  nor  what  phrasing  would  be  used  in  the 
prospectus.  But  he  knew  the  men  in  the  major 
ity,  and  he  knew  that  they  were  there  to  vote  for 
McKinley,  and  he  knew  that  they  were  men 
who  accomplish  their  ends.  It  was  an  old 
story  to  Hanna — the  picking  and  handling  of 
men.  There  are  8,000  men  on  his  pay-roll  at 
Cleveland — on  the  docks,  and  in  the  mines,  and 
at  furnaces,  and  at  desks,  and  on  grip  cars. 
There  were  one-tenth  as  many  delegates  at  St. 
Louis ;  and  besides,  the  St.  Louis  Convention 
was  a  cooperative  corporation.  So  Hanna  didn't 
worry.  Yet  certain  things  puzzled  him.  Despite 
the  fact  that  reporters  and  editors  of  what  might 
have  been  called,  with  professional  courtesy,  the 
loathed  but  esteemed  contemporaries,  said  un 
pleasant  things  in  double-leads  and  short  para 
graphs,  and  claimed  that  the  convention  was 
sewed  up  in  a  sack;  and  more,  that  it  was 


MARK   HAN  N  A.  107 

branded,  gagged,  and  delivered ;  and,  still  fur 
ther,  that  it  was  the  personal  property,  chattel, 
and  common  appurtenant  of  Mark  Hanna  and  of 
his  heirs  and  assigns  forever ;  affairs  took  a  turn 
that  would  have  astounded  Hanna  if  he  had 
claimed  property  right  in  the  delegates.  For 
Hanna  went  into  the  battle  for  McKinley's  nom 
ination  with  a  seven-devil  lust  for  tariffs.  The 
currency  question  was  one  of  those  things 
dreamed  of  in  Hanna's  philosophy,  along  with 
the  civil  service  and  the  Alaskan  boundary  and 
Cuban  independence.  Hanna  did  not  oppose  the 
gold  standard ;  but  while  he  was  struggling  for 
the  nomination  of  McKinley,  Hanna  seems  to 
have  believed  that  by  taking  thought  of  the  cur 
rency  question  he  could  not  add  one  cubit  to  Mc 
Kinley's  stature.  So  he  sat  in  his  office  in  Cleve 
land  and  listened  to  the  saurian  snort  of  his  barge 
whistles,  and  fixed  his  faith  in  ad  valorems  and 
tariffs  and  other  impedimenta  of  his  campaign. 

THE  GOLD  STANDARD. 

As  the  spring  of  1896  opened,  the  earnestness 
of  the  New  England  Republicans  for  a  gold- 
standard  declaration  amazed  Hanna.  He  went 
to  the  St.  Louis  Convention  with  his  amazement 
unabated ;  he  was  not  angry.  But  it  was  as 
though  all  the  men  on  the  Cleveland  City  Rail- 


io8  MARK   HANNA. 

way  had  decided  to  paint  their  left  ear  green, 
something  which  they  have  a  perfect  right  to 
do,  but  which  does  not  add  to  the  speed  of  the 
cars  nor  the  service  of  the  line.  He  did  not  fear 
the  outcome — so  far  as  McKinley  was  concerned 
— but  it  did  not  occur  to  Hanna,  when  he  went 
to  St.  Louis,  that  the  adoption  of  the  gold-stand 
ard  declaration  in  the  Republican  platform 
would  relegate  the  tariff  question  to  a  place  in 
the  campaign  beside  pensions  and  the  interstate 
commerce.  And  so  because  the  men  he  trusted — 
and  needed — favored  a  declaration  for  gold, 
Hanna  accepted  it ;  and  because  he  does  nothing 
by  halves,  thereafter  he  fought  for  the  gold- 
standard  plank ;  its  ways  were  his  ways,  its  peo 
ple  were  his  people,  and  its  enemies  provoked  his 
wrath. 

When  the  party's  platform  had  been  reported 
by  the  Committee  on  Resolutions,  and  the  clause 
endorsing  the  gold  standard  had  been  read,  Sen 
ator  Teller  of  Colorado  made  a  speech  favoring 
the  adoption  of  a  minority  report  of  the  Reso 
lutions  Committee,  which  report  eliminated  the 
gold-standard  declaration.  While  Teller  spoke, 
a  pudgy  man — broad-shouldered  and  of  robust 
girth — sat  fidgeting  in  his  chair,  but  one  row  re 
moved  from  the  aisle,  among  the  Ohio  delegates. 
It  was  Hanna.  The  loose  skin  around  his  mouth 


MARKHANNA.  109 

twitched  irritably  as  Teller's  swan-song  rose  and 
fell.  Occasionally  he  lifted  a  broad  hand  to  a 
large,  bumpy  cranium,  as  if  to  scratch.  Instead, 
he  rubbed  the  rich,  healthy,  terra-cotta  hide  on 
his  full,  firm  neck.  His  bright  brown  eyes  took 
the  orator's  mental  and  moral  measure  with  mer 
ciless  precision.  When  Teller  sat  down,  Hanna 
grunted  his  relief.  Others  spoke  in  favor  of  the 
Teller  resolution — perhaps  an  Idaho  man,  maybe 
a  Montanan,  from  a  chair  behind  the  Ohio  delega 
tion.  A  dapper  little  chap,  with  a  boutonniere 
on  his  perfectly  fitting  frock  coat,  came  chas- 
sezing  festively  down  the  rostrum,  and  received 
Chairman  Thurston's  recognition.  "Who's  that?" 
asked  Hanna  of  Grosvenor. 

"Cannon." 

"Who's  Cannon?" 

Mind  you,  it  was  Hanna  who  was  asking 
these  questions — Hanna,  who  was  popularly  sup 
posed  to  be  omniscient  and  omnipotent  at  St. 
Louis  that  day.  Yet  here  was  a  senator  whom 
Hanna  did  not  know,  and  whose  presence  on 
the  speaker's  list  surprised  the  man  who  held 
the  convention  in  the  hollow  of  his  hand. 

"Senator — Utah,"  replied  Grosvenor. 

The  festive  man  opened  his  mouth  to  read  his 
address. 

"Well,   for  heaven's   sake,   goin'   to  read   it! 


no  MARK  HANNA. 

Lookee  there — "  And  Hanna's  broad,  fat  hand 
waved  towards  the  orator.  "Perty,  ain't  he?" 

"Looks  like  a  cigar  drummer!" 

The  man  on  the  rostrum  continued.  He  made 
an  acrid  reference  to  the  gold  standard. 

"Well,  d — n  him — how  did  he  get  in  here?" 
snapped  Hanna,  and  no  one  could  answer. 

A  small-boned,  fat  leg  flopped  across  its  mate, 
and  Hanna  changed  his  weight  from  one  hunker 
to  the  other. 

Cannon's  remarks  were  growing  more  and 
more  luminous.  Hanna's  brown  eyes  began  to 
glow  in  heat  lightning  as  the  oration  proceeded. 
His  twitching  mouth  spilled  its  rage  in  grunts. 
The  rhetoric  of  the  Utah  man  was  telling.  He 
began  to  threaten  to  leave  the  party.  Finally 
he  put  the  threat  into  a  flamboyant  period.  Then 
Hanna's  harsh  voice  blurted: 

"Go,  go!" 

There  was  a  tragic  half-second's  silence.  Ten 
thousand  eyes  turned  toward  Hanna.  Evidently 
he  could  feel  their  glances  hailing  on  his  back, 
for  his  flinty  auburn  head  bobbed  down  like  a 
cork,  and  an  instant  later,  when  the  whole  con 
vention  was  firing  "go's"  at  the  rostrum,  Hanna 
rose  proudly  from  the  small  of  his  back,  and  got 
on  the  firing  line.  After  that  the  Utah  man  was 
in  the  hands  of  a  mob.  Hanna  devoted  himself 


MARK    HANNA.  in 

to  the  pleasurable  excitement  of  the  chase.  He 
stormed  and  roared  with  the  mob ;  he  guyed  and 
he  cheered  with  the  mob.  He  was  of  it,  led  by  it, 
whooping  it  up.  Then,  when  it  was  all  over, 
when  the  gold-standard  platform  had  been  adopt 
ed,  Hanna  climbed  into  his  chair,  clasped  his 
hands  composedly  behind  him,  threw  back 
his  head,  let  out  his  voice,  and  sang  "America" 
with  th'e  throng.  When  he  forgot  the  words, 
his  dah-dah-de-dah-de-dums  rang  out  with  patri 
otic  felicity,  and  his  smile  of  seraphic  satisfac 
tion  was  a  good  sight  for  sore  eyes.  For 
Mark  Hanna  was  giving  an  excellent  representa 
tion  of  a  joyous  American  citizen,  with  his  wa 
gon  hitched  to  a  bucking  star,  jogging  peace 
fully  down  the  milky  way  of  victory. 

HANNA  IS  HUMAN. 

By  this  token  may  the  gentle  reader  know  that 
Hanna  is  intensely  human.  There  is  nothing 
god-like,  nothing  demoniac,  nothing  cherubic, 
nothing  serpentine  about  him.  He  is  a  plain  man, 
who  stands  in  the  last  ditch  with  his  friends,  and 
rights  his  enemies  to  the  death.  He  enjoys  a 
good  joke,  a  good  fellow,  or  a  good  dinner;  and, 
if  possible,  likes  all  three  served  at  the  same 
table.  Often  he  wins  brilliantly,  sometimes  loses 
conspicuously,  makes  a  fool  of  himself  occasion- 


ii2  MARK   HAN  N  A. 

ally,  laughs  at  it  good-naturedly,  and  does  it 
over  again,  "even  as  you  and  I."  He  has  on  his 
bones  the  clay  of  the  unexplainable  old  Adam — 
rich  in  weakness  and  strength,  graces  and  foibles, 
and  withal  he  has  the  philosophy  which  sustained 
the  shepherd  of  Arden.  So  his  strength  is  more 
than  his  weakness,  for  he  has  the  virility  of  com 
mon  sense.  He  is  not  happy  crocheting  tidies 
and  adopting  ringing  resolutions.  He  is  a  man 
of  deeds  rather  than  of  explanations. 

Hanna  is  not  a  man  of  exalted  ideals.  Between 
his  purpose  and  its  execution  the  path  lies  in  a 
straight  line.  If  gentlemen  in  spectacles  come 
along  the  path,  stretching  across  strings  of  eth 
ical  obstacles,  and  planting  in  it  the  potsherds  of 
transcendental  philosophic  scruples,  Hanna  push 
es  forward  to  his  end,  kicking  away  the  strings 
and  crushing  the  pottery  under  his  feet. 

Later,  if  he  has  time,  he  devotes  a  few  lurid 
minutes  to  the  spectacled  gentry  before  he  closes 
the  incident  with  a  bang  and  goes  about  his  busi 
ness.  Hanna  is  perfectly  willing  to  admit  that 
beyond  the  Alps  lies  Italy  and  that  the  hills  are 
green  afar  off;  but  he  insists  on  his  American 
privilege  of  voting  for  the  majority  report.  In 
politics  Hanna  is  a  partisan.  With  him  the  long- 
nosed,  short-chinned  mugwump  is  entitled  to  the 
same  consideration  due  to  the  guerilla  in  time  of 


MARK    HANNA.  113 

war.  Hanna  would  endorse  a  political  proposi 
tion  not  authorized  by  his  party  caucus  and  his 
party  platform  about  as  readily  as  a  general 
would  take  orders  from  a  newspaper.  In  his 
party  Hanna  has  disputes,  differences,  and  con 
tentions.  But  he  knows  when  he  is  whipped,  and 
respects  a  similar  knowledge  in  his  adversary. 
When  a  fight  is  over,  it  is  over  with  Hanna.  He 
bears  no  malice,  carries  no  knife  from  the  con 
flict  to  use  another  day,  and  he  has  a  scorching 
contempt  for  the  contentious — and  to  Hanna  im 
possible — persons  who  insist  that  a  question  is 
never  settled  until  it  is  settled  right.  From  Han- 
na's  point  of  view  the  ways  of  the  reformer  and 
of  "the  serpent  on  the  rock"  are  beyond  under 
standing. 

HANNA  NOT  A  DEMAGOGUE. 

For  Hanna's  solicitude  for  the  people  is  as  ten 
der  as  that  of  the  late  William  H.  Vanderbilt. 
Hanna  believes  in  every  man  for  himself  and  the 
devil  take  the  hindermost.  He  does  not  fawn 
upon  the  failures  of  life,  nor  mince  matters  in 
locating  the  blame  for  their  condition.  Every 
good  cause  has  produced  its  demagogues,  who 
are  as  dangerous  to  progress  as  the  opponents 
of  the  cause.  And  although  Hanna  has  been 
grilled  in  cartoons  as  a  money  devil  with  dollar 


H4  MARK   HAN  N  A. 

marks  for  scales ;  has  been  sizzled  in  public  scorn 
as  a  conscienceless  boss ;  has  been  called  a  crusher 
of  labor,  an  industrial  octopus,  a  commercial  Mo 
loch,  and  every  manner  of  bird  or  beast  on  earth, 
in  the  air  above,  or  in  the  waters  beneath,  his  bit 
terest  enemies  in  their  most  interesting  flights  of 
vituperation  have  not  added  to  the  gayety  of  na 
tions  by  calling  Mark  Hanna  a  demagogue.  Such 
an  appellation  would  be  as  grotesque  as  to  call 
Jay  Gould  a  protagonist  or  "Mr.  Toots"  an  icon 
oclast. 

If  a  large,  jagged,  brown  damn  is  needed  in 
a  diplomatic  situation,  Hanna  furnishes  it.  If  a 
laugh  is  needed,  Hanna  has  it  and  is  not  afraid 
to  use  it.  If  an  open  fight  is  required,  Hanna 
makes  it.  He  is  a  man  of  simple  instincts  and 
single  purposes.  His  relations  with  certain  of 
his  senatorial  colleagues  were  arranged  in  their 
biological  development  millions  of  years  ago. 
For  instance,  the  velvet-pawed  feline  tactics  of 
former  Senator  Quay  set  Hanna  to  baying  deep- 
mouthed  imprecations  and  kicking  out  behind 
him  the  loam  of  recent  alluvial  reminiscence.  It 
is  not  that  Hanna  is  so  entirely  displeased  with 
what  Quay  does  as  with  the  way  it  is  done,  for 
Hanna  is  no  prude.  He  has  a  conscience — the 
conventional  conscience  of  commerce.  To  him 
wrong  is  wrong,  and  right  is  right.  Everything 


MARK   HANNA.  115 

is  either  black  or  white ;  he  is  color-blind  to  the 
pea  greens  and  heliotropes  and  electric  blues  of 
conduct.  If  a  man  lies,  he  lies ;  if  he  steals,  he  is 
a  thief ;  if  he  cheats,  he  is  a  liar  and  a  thief ;  and 
that's  the  end  of  him  with  Hanna.  He  likes  a 
man  with  good  red  blood  and  a  strenuous  spirit 
and  common  sense ;  as  for  the  other  sort,  they 
are  all  one  to  him — the  sort  that  "might  be  made 
after  supper  of  a  cheese  paring,"  and  he  will  have 
none  of  the  breed. 

Yet  in  national  politics  Hanna  is  a  strong  man, 
exceptionally  so.  He  is  efficient.  He  is  domi 
nant  in  his  party.  Yet  in  his  domination  he  does 
not  domineer.  He  accomplishes  his  end ;  but  not 
by  diplomacy,  not  by  playing  man  upon  man,  not 
like  Pontius  Pilate,  but  like  Herod.  Hanna  is  a 
force,  not  an  intrigue.  Politics  is  not  his  trade ; 
he  is  a  business  man  first  and  a  politician  after 
wards  ;  yet  he  is  not  a  dilettante  politician.  When 
he  gets  in  tight  places,  as  in  the  senatorial  elec 
tion  of  '97,  he  does  not  fight  with  the  foils,  but 
rough  and  tumble,  hand  to  hand,  and  with  such 
clubs,  dornicks,  and  other  loose  furniture  of  the 
environment  as  the  devil  may  have  put  in  his 
reach. 

So  much  for  what  may  be  called  the  dramatis 
personae  of  Hanna.  Now  to  return  to  the  plot. 

After  the  St.  Louis  Convention,  Hanna  played 


n6  MARK   H  ANN  A. 

with  the  party  machine,  running  it  at  full  speed 
and  high  pressure  from  June  till  November.  Then 
he  slipped  the  belt  from  his  engines  and  let  the 
wheels  of  the  machine  run  down.  His  great  in 
dustrial  and  financial  concerns  on  the  lake  were 
grinding  away  smoothly  and  needed  but  half  his 
power.  His  piston-rods  were  thumping  in  his 
head  with  nothing  to  hold  them.  The  throbbing 
and  jolting  of  his  wild  engines  must  have  strained 
his  nerves,  for  before  the  world  knew  what  had 
happened  Hanna  had  flipped  a  belt  into  the 
United  States  Senate.  But  speed  in  that  mill  is 
slow  and  the  grist  is  light,  wherefore  there  is  a 
loss  of  power  and  a  wearing  jar. 

SIGNS  OF  AGE. 

Hanna  seems  to  be  ten  years  older  than  he 
was  four  years  ago.  The  ruddy  terra-cotta  skin 
that  glowed  with  health  in  1896  has  faded  to  an 
ashen  pink.  The  mobile  smile  that  was  a  conver 
sation  without  words  is  hardening  a  little — but 
only  a  little.  The  lower  parts  of  his  legs  are 
slightly  uncertain,  and  his  feet  almost  shuffle. 
The  large,  firm  hand  grips  his  cane  with  some 
thing  like  nervousness.  The  thin  hair  hangs 
more  listlessly  to  the  head  than  it  used  to  hang; 
but  the  jaws  are  wired  with  steel,  and  the  brown 
eyes — and  these  are  Hanna's  harbor  lights — • 


MARK   HANNA.  117 

twinkle  with  the  fervor  of  a  schoolboy's.  They 
show  forth  an  unconquered  soul  and  a  rnerry 
heart,  which  maketh  a  glad  countenance.  Han- 
na's  life  at  Washington  has  not  taken  the  edge 
from  his  humanity.  Indeed,  so  far  as  he  bears 
any  relation  to  the  present  National  administra 
tion,  Hanna  is  the  human  touch. 

The  relations  existing  between  Hanna  and  his 
friend  William  McKinley,  President  of  the 
United  States,  are  particularly  interesting.  The 
popular  notion  of  these  relations  is  derived  from 
newspaper  cartoons.  Probably  at  least  5,000,000 
of  the  15,000,000  citizens  who  will  vote  at  the 
coming  election  imagine  that  Hanna  tramps  noi 
sily  into  the  White  House  every  morning,  gruffly 
gives  his  orders  for  the  day's  administration  to 
the  shivering  President,  and  then  walks  out  and 
continues  to  grind  the  faces  off  the  poor ;  but  the 
real  relations  existing  between  Hanna  and  Mc 
Kinley  are  stranger  than  fiction.  It  is  McKin 
ley,  not  Hanna,  that  controls.  The  masterful, 
self-willed,  nimble-witted,  impetuous,  virile  Han 
na  in  the  presence  of  the  placid,  colorless,  im 
perturbable,  emotionless,  diplomatic,  stolid  Mc 
Kinley  becomes  superficially  deferential  and  con 
siderate  of  the  Presidential  dignity,  almost  to  an 
unnecessary  degree.  It  is  known  to  all  men  at  all 
familiar  with  McKinley's  administration,  that  in 


n8  MARK  H  ANN  A. 

the  differences  which  have  come  up  in  the  dis 
cussion  of  administrative  affairs,  when  Hanna 
has  been  consulted  at  all,  he  has  almost  invariably 
yielded  his  opinion  to  McKinley's.  The  friend 
ship — one  might  call  it  almost  the  infatuation 
of  Hanna  for  McKinley — is  inexplicable  on  any 
other  theory  save  that  of  the  affinity  of  opposites. 
History  has  often  paralleled  this  affair,  but  has 
never  fully  explained  her  parallels." 

MURAT  HALSTEAD'S  SKETCH. 

The  following  selections  are  from  an  article  on 
Marcus  A.  Hanna,  by  Murat  Halstead,  in  the  Re 
view  of  Reviews: 

"There  is  a  new  man  in  our  politics,  a  recog 
nized  power,  well  known  in  spite  of  his  novelty; 
not  a  professional  statesman,  but  a  man  of 
affairs ;  a  business  man  one  of  the  most  famous 
politicians ;  a  quiet  man,  but  making  a  noise  in 
the  world;  a  national  personage  with  interna 
tional  reputation;  a  man  of  simple  manners  and 
broad  shoulders,  who  has  tested  his  strength  in 
matters  material  and  bears  golden  sheaves  from 
harvest  fields.  He  is  a  laborer  on  large  lines,  and 
he  conducts  a  presidential  candidacy  as  he  has 
conducted  fleets  and  managed  mines,  on  the  great 
lakes,  developing  resources  and  applying  them 


MARK   HANNA.  119 

with  courage  and  capacity  and  with  honorable 
distinction  and  affluent  success.. 

"There  is  no  name  in  all  the  land  more  famil 
iar,  and  he  accepts  conspicuity  with  complacency, 
because  it  is  unavoidable  in  the  business ;  but  he 
avoids  ostentation,  and  when  weighty  cares  per 
mit  the  indulgence  of  his  preferred  enjoyments, 
they  are  in  the  retirement  of  his  beautiful  home. 
He  has  not  sought  to  draw  the  public  gaze  and 
he  does  not  shrink  from  it.  He  is  without  the 
perturbation  of  vanity  or  the  affectation  of  indif 
ference. 

"Marcus  Alonzo  Hanna  was  born  in  New  Lis 
bon,  Columbiana  County,  Ohio,  September  24, 
1837.  Columbiana  County,  Ohio,  borders  on  the 
eastern  line  of  the  state,  and  on  the  west  adjoins 
the  County  of  Stark,  the  home  of  McKinley,  and 
on  the  east  is  bounded  by  Beaver  County,  Penn 
sylvania,  the  home  of  Senator  Quay.  His  blood 
is  that  of  Virginia  Friends  and  Vermont  Presby 
terians,  and  there  are  in  it  eminently  the  quali 
ties  that  yield  vigor  and  tenacity,  and  a  solemn, 
sombre,  fiery  perseverance.  One  of  his  gifts  is 
that  of  continuance.  There  is  no  better  blood, 
and  when  brains  are  born  with  it  the  combina 
tion  is  excellence — and  Hanna  inherited  ability 
and  was  educated  in  business. 

"Next  to  the  efficacy  of  good  brains  and  blood 


120  MARK   HANNA. 

in  making  up  a  man  comes  his  environment — the 
circumstances  surrounding  the  boy  and  the  man 
— the  conditions  upon  which  are  opened  in  his 
neighborhood  the  golden   gates   of  opportunity. 
We  have  said  Mr.  Hanna  was  educated  in  busi 
ness,  but  we  must  not  neglect  to  say  that  he  had' 
a  high  school  education,  and  a  year  in  one  of  the: 
Ohio  colleges. 

"Mr.  Hanna  was  born,  as  Major  McKinley 
was,  in  the  heart  of  the  region  richest  in  natural 
resources  of  any  in  the  country — and  unsur 
passed  in  the  world — western  Pennsylvania  and 
eastern  Ohio.  The  coal  beds  are  there  deep 
and  rich.  There  oil  was  struck  in  unparalleled 
rivers  of  wealth,  and  natural  gas  was  at  length 
revealed.  The  manufacturing  towns  of  Ohio 
west  and  north  of  Columbiana  and  Stark  coun 
ties  are  among  the  finest  examples  on  the  conti 
nent  of  the  enterprise,  the  hardihood,  the  skill, 
the  inventive  and  mechanical  ingenuity,  the  gen 
ius  for  organization,  the  cunning  hands,  the  com 
petent  heads  of  the  American  people.  This  was; 
the  environment  of  McKinley  and  Hanna,  in 
their  most  impressionable  days,  and  their  asso 
ciation  in  after  times  may  be  traced  to  the  sympa 
thies  of  their  earliest  contemplative  years. 

"It  was  but  natural  that  while  one  became  a 
lawyer  and  statesman  and  the  other  a  business 


MARK   HANNA.  121 

man  who  plowed  the  unsalted  seas,  and  delved  in 
the  unsalted  mines  of  the  majestic  northwest,  they 
should  come  together  in  a  common  cause  regard 
ing  which  the  sentiments  of  their  boyhood  be 
came  the  convictions  of  their  manhood.  It  is  a 
silly  sort  of  slander  that  attributes  to  such  men 
only  sordid  motives.  Such  selfishness  as  they 
have  is  enlightened,  and  their  first  lessons  taught 
them  that  the  enactment  into  national  law  of  the 
principle  of  protection  was  the  indispensable 
foundation  of  the  higher  prosperity  of  the  people 
of  their  native  land. 

"Mr.  Hanna  is  a  man  of  large  estate,  but  he  has 
no  idle  hours  or  dollars.  He  is  active  in  capital 
and  labor,  and  an  example  that  head  and  hands 
may  work  together  with  profit  and  show  each 
other  fair  play.  He  holds  the  respect  of  work- 
ingmen  because  he  treats  them  with  respect,  and 
he  gains  their  good  will  because  he  is  fair,  and  in 
nothing  does  he  show  them  greater  consideration 
than  in  never  trying  the  blandishments  of  dema 
gogues  with  them. 

"Mr.  Hanna's  father,  on  removing  to  Cleve 
land,  became  a  wholesale  grocer  and  provision 
merchant,  and  the  son  at  twenty  years  of  age  was 
a  clerk  in  the  store,  and  in  1861  his  father  died 
and  he  succeeded  to  the  business.  Young  Han 
na  had  traveled  extensively  and  formed  a  valuable 


122  MARK   HAN  N  A. 

acquaintance.  In  1864  he  married  Miss  Augusta 
Rhodes,  the  daughter  of  his  senior  partner,  D.  P. 
Rhodes,  who  retired  a  few  years  later,  when  the 
existing  firm  of  M.  A.  Hanna  &  Co.  was  organ 
ized.  The  business  of  the  firm  required  a  great 
deal  of  transportation  on  the  lake.  Hanna,  after 
being  interested  in  several  vessels,  became  the 
proprietor  of  one  named  for  his  father,  Leonard 
Hanna,  and  he  is  now  a  large  owner  of  ships  on 
the  lakes  and  the  head  of  the  Globe  Iron  Works 
Company  of  shipbuilders.The  course  of  his  busi 
ness  is  plainly  marked  as  a  system  of  progression. 
First  a  grocer,  then  a  shipowner, — the  ships 
growing  out  of  and  sailing  in  the  requirements  of 
trade ;  then,  as  he  wanted  ships,  he  became  a  ship 
builder,  and  as  he  consumed  iron  he  developed 
ores. 

"His  handsome  residence  is  famous  for  hos 
pitality,  and  it  is  administered  with  a  geniality 
and  liberality  that  gain  and  give  pleasure.  He 
values  too  highly  the  blessing  of  health  to  neglect 
it,  and  takes  exercise  regularly.  His  good  humor 
and  courtesy  disarm  even  hostile  reporters,  and 
they  are  soon  convinced  of  the  cleverness  of 
friendliness,  and  commune  with  him  in  the  man 
ner  of  confidential  affection;  but  he  never  by 
chance  tells  them  anything  he  does  not  intend 
they  should  find  out.  The  artists  who  have  ex- 


MARK   HANNA.  123 

erted  their  capacities  for  caricature,  and  who  do 
not  hesitate  to  portray  him  as  a  monster,  find  it 
aids  their  art  with  a  touch  of  nature  to  draw  him 
with  a  smiling  face.  Whatever  they  do  they  do 
that,  and  they  are  at  a  loss  to  know  how  their 
arrows,  that  they  have  tipped  with  rancor,  fail  to 
inflict  a  wound  or  a  sting. 

"In  the  same  corner  of  the  state  of  Ohio  where 
Hanna  was  born  and  has  always  lived  are  the 
homes  of  John  Sherman,  James  A.  Garfield  and 
William  McKinley.  Sherman  was  born  in  an 
other  part  of  the  state,  but  through  all  his  profes 
sional  and  public  life  he  lived  at  Mansfield, 
which  is  within  an  hour's  ride  of  Canton.  Gar- 
field  lived  closer  to  Cleveland  than  the  others, 
and  in  behalf  of  these  three  neighbors  of  his 
Mark  Hanna,  the  business  man,  became  Hanna 
the  politician ;  not  that  he  cared  for  the  excite 
ment  or  was  fond  of  display,  or  thought  that 
there  was  anything  but  hard  work  and  the  gen 
eral  good  in  it  for  him.  He  was  in  agreement 
with  Sherman,  Garfield  and  McKinley  in  princi 
ple,  and  has  believed  of  each  of  them  that  his 
election  to  the  presidency  would  be  the  elevation 
of  the  standard  of  dignity,  honor  and  prosperity 
of  the  country.  He  was  Garfield's  friend,  but  had 
little  to  do  with  the  nomination  of  the  second 
martyr  President,  and  took  a  serious  but  not  ex- 


124  MARK   HAN  N  A. 

travagant  or  absorbing  interest  in  his  election.  It 
was  Mr.  Hanna's  judgment,  and  it  was  justified, 
that  John  Sherman's  services  to  the  country  in 
his  financial  policy,  through  which  was  achieved 
the  resumption  of  specie  payments,  were  not  rec 
ognized  as  they  should  be,  and  he  is  still  of  that 
opinion. 

"The  proceedings  preliminary  to  the  convention 
of  1888  brought  McKinley  and  Hanna  often  to 
gether.  They  were  in  consultation  many  times 
and  it  was  a  labor  of  zeal  for  them  to  canvass  the 
country  for  Sherman  and  muster  his  forces. 
The  keen  eyes  of  Hanna  were  upon  McKinley 
and  found  his  nature  that  of  the  simplicity  and 
nobility  of  manly  sincerity.  The  X  rays  are  not 
more  penetrating  than  Hanna's  glance,  and  his 
hearty  respect  for  his  friend  was  converted  to 
warm  regard  and  admiration.  With  McKinley's 
frankness  and  clearness,  his  transparency  re 
vealed  his  probity;  and  in  his  turn  he  rejoiced  in 
the  strength  of  the  strong  man  by  his  side. 
There  was  no  compact  between  them,  they  were 
of  the  same  mind. 

"Their  friendship  was  welded  during  this  con 
vention.  They  formed  the  liking  of  the  unlike, 
that  is  an  attachment  greater  than  is  given  to 
those  cast  of  like  metal  in  the  same  mold.  It 
would  have  been  shirking  an  obligation,  the  out- 


MARK   HANNA.  125 

growth  of  sympathy,  association  and  common 
principles,  and  an  attempt  to  evade  destiny,  if 
Mark  Hanna  had  not  consented  to  manage  the 
presidential  campaign  of  McKinley. 

"It  is  a  blunder  on  the  part  of  those  who  assail 
Mr.  Hanna  to  hold  that  he  is  exclusively  or  ex 
ceptionally  a  man  of  dollars.  He  has  had  enough 
of  them  long  enough  to  know  the  weakness  as 
well  as  the  power  of  money,  and  his  primary  ad 
vantage  in  his  political  activities  is  his  responsi 
bility — not  in  the  collection  of  contributions  or 
application  of  funds,  but  in  the  potentiality  with 
which  he  can  refuse  the  demands  that  are  unrea 
sonable  and  reason  to  conclusions.  There  is 
economy  in  his  ability — and  the  accusation  that 
he  is  a  professional  purchaser  of  men  is  an  exag 
geration  of  an  imagination. 

"Mr.  Hanna  is  the  new  man  in  politics,  the  man 
of  affairs  of  his  own,  finding  time  for  unofficial 
business.  This  is  not  of  evil;  there  is  not  a  bet 
ter  sign  of  better  things.  The  element  of  which 
Mr.  Hanna  is  a  type  is  needed  to  stand  firmly  for 
the  balances  of  power  with  which  the  fathers  con 
served  the  Republic — and  this  representation  of 
the  ancient  civic  and  national  pride  in  our  gov 
ernment  under  the  Constitution  as  it  is,  has  not 
come  to  us  without  cause,  or  appeared  too  soon. 
Mr.  Hanna  will  deserve  well  of  his  country  that 


126 


MARK    HANNA. 


he  is  serving  for  the  sake  of  principle  with  mo 
tives  and  for  considerations  that  contemplate 
only  his  fair  share,  as  a  laborious  and  faithful  cit 
izen,  of  the  general  welfare." 


OTHER   ESSAYS. 


PLUTOPHOBIA. 
(From  SOCIAL  LAWS.) 

There  is  an  incredibly  large  element  of  the 
American  people  to  whom  the  sight  or  thought 
of  a  rich  man  is  as  a  red  rag  to  an  angry  bull.  At 
once  there  is  furious  snorting  and  bellowing,  and 
pawing  of  the  earth ;  and  if  the  red  rag  could  be 
got  at,  it  would  be  torn  to  shreds.  No  one  can 
realize  the  extent  of  this  disease,  which  I  ven 
ture  to  name  plutophobia,  unless  he  has  mingled 
much  with  the  working  classes,  or  read  the  pa 
pers  which  are  published  ostensibly  in  their  in 
terests.  Speak  of  Carnegie,  for  instance,  and  at 
once  he  is  denounced  for  a  plutocrat  and  a  robber. 

But,  you  say,  consider  his  benevolence!  Has 
he  not  given  his  millions  to  the  public  welfare? 

"He  has  robbed  his  workmen  of  this  wealth. 
He  deserves  no  credit  for  his  seeming  benevo 
lence.  Let  him  do  justice  to  his  workmen,  and 
he  will  not  have  these  millions  to  give  away !" 

It  is  vain  to  say  that,  having  got  these  millions, 
he  might  have  kept  them  all  if  he  had  chosen  to 


128  OTHER   ESSAYS. 

do  so.  You  will  get  no  word  of  kindness  for  him. 
He  is  rich.  That  is  his  crime.  And  has  it  in 
deed  come  to  this,  that  success  in  America  shall 
make  a  man  hated  and  despised  by  large  numbers 
of  his  fellow-citizens  ? 

"MARK  HANNA." 

A  common  illustration  of  this  trait  in  our  work 
ing  people  may  be  found  in  the  contempt  ex 
pressed  by  so  many  of  them  and  their  political 
representatives  for  the  figure  of  M.  A.  Hanna, 
the  political  manager  of  the  Republican  party 
during  the  last  two  presidential  campaigns.  The 
papers  of  the  opposition,  from  the  respectable 
democratic  organ  to  the  vituperative  and  despica 
ble  socialistic  handbill,  teem  with  coarse  and 
brutal  caricature  of  a  man  whose  only  known 
offense  is  that  he  has  represented  the  cause  of 
Success  and  Prosperity,  rather  than  that  of  pau 
perism  and  failure.  This  Napoleon  of  politics, 
who  marshalled  the  Republican  armies  and  led 
them  to  victory,  against  all  the  allied  forces  of 
Democracy,  is  the  bete  noire  of  all  pauperdom. 
They  picture  him  as  a  fat  Nero,  fiddling  and 
laughing  over  burning  Rome.  A  Democratic 
newspaper  relates  with  evident  relish  that  a  poor 
Russian  immigrant,  applying  for  naturalization 
papers,  replied  to  a  question  as  to  our  form  of 


OTHER   ESSAYS.  129 

government  that  "Mark  Hanna  is  King!"  As 
to  our  method  of  making  laws,  he  thought  that 
Mark  Hanna  made  them,  conferring  sometimes 
with  Mr.  McKinley !  Such  were  the  conceptions 
he  had  formed  evidently  upon  the  statements  of 
his  associates. 

HANNA  COMPARED  WITH  WASHING 
TON. 

It  is  needless  to  say  that  the  moral  character 
of  a  great  leader  in  war  or  politics  is  not  to  be 
estimated  by  Sunday-school  criterions.  Men  who 
practise  the  Golden  Rule,  and  keep  all  the  Com 
mandments,  do  not  gain  laurels  in  these  fields  of 
action.  A  Sunday-school  teacher  having  told 
her  class  how  Washington,  when  leader  of  the 
colonial  forces,  wrote  a  false  letter  of  instruc 
tions  to  his  officers,  for  the  purpose  of  letting  the 
enemy  capture  it  to  their  own  discomfiture,  fin 
ished  by  asking  whether  this  were  not  a  kind  of 
lie.  The  pupils  agreed  that  it  was. 

"But,"  asked  the  teacher,  "was  he  not  the 
George  Washington  who  could  not  tell  a  lie  about 
the  cherry  tree?" 

This  puzzled  the  class,  until  one  bright  little 
fellow  exclaimed,  "Oh,  but  that  was  when  he  was 
a  little  boy !" 

The   idea  that  maturity  of  judgment  brings 


130  OTHER   ESSAYS. 

certain  privileges  and  immunities  in  ethical  mat 
ters  may  have  occurred  also  to  Mr.  Hanna.  Hav 
ing  to  fight  the  devil  of  bribery  and  deceit,  he 
may  have  been  compelled  to  sanction  the  use  of 
fire. 

MR.  HANNA'S  WEALTH. 

But  Mr.  Hanna  has  not  been  so  hated  merely 
because  he  has  employed  in  politics  the  methods 
in  common  use  even  by  the  best  of  his  opponents. 
He  has  been  hated  because  he  is  rich,  and  has 
represented  the  cause  of  the  prosperous.  His 
caricaturists  represent  him  in  clothing  covered 
with  $  marks.  One  cartoonist  used  this  mark 
ingeniously  as  the  motif  for  all  the  decorations 
of  the  room  in  which  he  pictured  his  subject.  It 
seemed  as  though  the  valiant  knights  of  the 
brush  could  never  tire  of  repeating  this  symbol 
ism. 

Rich?  How  got  he  his  riches?  By  zeal,  in 
dustry,  ability.  When  we  stop  men  from  get 
ting  riches  in  this  way,  it  will  be  a  doomsday  for 
the  nation !  Mr.  Hanna  has  been  notably  active 
in  settling  several  labor  disputes  that  had  led  to 
strikes.  Workingmen  too  soon  forget  such  ben 
efits  and  remember  only  the  $  marks ! 

During  the  recent  campaign  I  admired  Mr. 
Hanna's  frank  and  bold  utterances  on  the  subject 


OTHER   ESSAYS.  131 

of  industrial  organizations.  When  most  of  the 
Republican  orators  were  shouting  themselves 
hoarse,  in  their  denunciations  of  "the  Trust," 
trying  to  out-clamor  the  Democrats  and  Popu 
lists  who  were  behowling  that  much-abused  in 
stitution,  Mr.  Hanna  refused  to  join  the  chorus 
for  mere  political  effect.  He  stood  up  sturdily, 
and,  in  plain,  blunt,  Mark  Antony  fashion,  de 
clared  that  the  Trust  is  not  a  political  question; 
which  is  undeniably  true,  as  the  people  must 
sometime  learn.  It  is  no  more  a  question  for 
politics  than  is  the  partnership  of  a  firm  of  gro 
cers.  "There  is  just  as  much  Democratic  as  Re 
publican  money  in  the  Trusts,"  he  declares ;  and 
he  is  in  a  position  to  know,  if  his  opponents  may 
be  believed ! 

The  head  of  the  Sugar  Trust  was  asked  a  few 
years  ago,  by  a  Senate  Committee,  "Do  you  con 
tribute  to  campaign  expenses?" 

"We  do." 

"To  which  party  do  you  contribute?" 

"Depends  upon  circumstances," 

"To  which  fund  do  you  contribute  in  Massa 
chusetts  ?" 

"The  Republican." 

"To  which  in  New  York?" 

"The  Democratic." 

"To  which  in  New  Jersey?" 


132  OTHER   ESSAYS. 

"I  will  have  to  look  at  the  books.  That  is  a 
doubtful  State." 

ETHICS  FOR  THE  STATE. 

How  shall  the  State  rear  up  good  citizens? 
What  shall  be  its  theory  of  ethics?  What  in 
fluences  shall  it  bring  to  bear  upon  the  crim 
inal?  These  are  vital  questions,  which  our  wise 
men  must  answer  wisely,  if  the  State  is  to  per 
sist. 

There  are  doubts  and  questionings  in  the  air. 
The  Ten  Commandments  are  no  longer  blindly 
obeyed  merely  because  they  are  ancient  and  ven 
erable.  Men  are  growing  bold,  and  daring  to 
examine  all  things,  even  the  Sacred  Law  of  old. 

"Thou  shalt  not  steal."  Who  is  this  Moses, 
who  comes  to  us  with  his  "Thus  saith  the  Lord"  ? 

"Ah,  but  the  jail,  the  scaffold;  we  must  respect 
these,  even  though  we  repudiate  Moses  and  his 
God,  with  the  Tables  of  the  Law." 

So?  and  is  this  at  last  the  safe-guard  of  the 
State,  the  foundation  of  our  ethics  ?  Shall  Fear 
be  the  only  god  in  our  pantheon  whom  we  must 
at  last  respect?  Then  indeed  let  us  arise  and 
gird  on  our  armor,  for  no  man's  life  or  estate  is 
safe. 

The  State  knows  no  ethics.  It  knows  only 
expediency,  safety.  Its  argument  is  a  club,  a 


OTHER   ESSAYS.  133 

bullet,  a  jail,  a  scaffold.  It  says,  "Let  a  man 
hold  what  theory  he  will.  We  are  concerned 
only  with  his  acts.  Let  him  worship  God,  or 
fellowship  with  Satan;  hold  with  Moses  and  Je 
sus,  or  break  all  the  sacred  tablets ;  let  him  be 
Christian,  pagan,  scoffer,  philosopher,  what  he 
will ;  we  ask  only  that  he  shall  abide  by  our  or 
dinances  of  public  safety.  If  he  steal,  and  be 
found  out,  we  have  our  penalty ;  but  with  his  re 
lations  to  God  and  his  own  soul  we  have  no 
business." 

This  is  a  shallow  policy,  fit  only  for  slaves  and 
idiots.  Shall  not  the  State  deal  with  man  as  with 
a  living  soul?  Is  man  a  beast,  to  be  chained, 
caged,  beaten  into  brute  submission?  Our  jails 
are  not  strong  enough  to  hold  this  wild  beast, 
Man.  Our  chains  snap  asunder.  Our  weapons 
glance  and  do  not  kill  his  wickedness. 

I  rejoice  that  the  spirit  of  man  cannot  be  thus 
tamed  and  subjugated.  I  rejoice  that  there  are 
men  who  break  all  chains  and  bars,  beat  down 
all  opposers,  and  escape  to  Liberty.  The  State 
wants  citizens,  not  slaves.  Let  us  have  Men, 
not  beasts  muzzled. 

When  you  have  tamed  and  broken  your  wild 
man  by  these  brute  methods,  what  is  he?  No 
more  a  man,  but  a  poor  craven  beast,  fit  only  to 
come  and  go  at  some  hard  master's  bidding. 


134  OTHER   ESSAYS. 

Your  institutions  are  weakest  where  you  think 
them  strongest.  Your  bad  man  is  caught,  your 
worst  man  remains  at  large.  Your  jail  holds 
only  the  weaklings  of  Satan.  His  lords  and 
barons  laugh  at  your  bolts  and  bars. 

Is  there  no  higher  law  than  these  which  you 
have  written  on  your  statute  books?  If  not, 
alas  for  the  State! 

What  is  my  remedy?  Education,  instruction, 
exkortation.  The  day  is  past  when  men  can  be 
governed  by  superstition  or  brute  force.  The 
Church,  the  State,  were  once  clothed  with  ma 
jesty  and  power.  Men  fell  down  and  worshipped 
the  one,  or  stood  with  bowed  head  to  receive  the 
admonition  of  the  other.  But  for  thousands  of 
men  today  priest  and  king  have  played  their  part 
and  made  their  exit  from  the  stage  of  life.  They 
are  tolerated,  respected,  but  not  feared  or 
obeyed. 

The  radical  citizen  demands  freedom,  in 
thought,  speech,  action.  If  he  is  restricted,  he  is 
chafed.  He  will  be  free,  though  the  State  dis 
solve  and  the  heavens  fall.  He  will  respect  his 
neighbor's  rights,  but  will  assert  his  own.  If  the 
Church  or  the  State  prohibit  him,  he  demands 
reasons.  Failing  to  receive  them,  he  follows  his 
inclinations,  but  secretly,  and  with  circumspec 
tion. 


OTHER  ESSAYS.  135 

The  ideal  State  is  that  in  which  all  restraint  is 
voluntary  self-restraint.  All  government  which 
subjugates  is,  so  far,  bad.  Its  restrictive  and  pu 
nitive  institutions  are  a  confession  of  weakness 
and  failure.  They  are  evil,  even  though  justi 
fiable  from  the  standpoint  of  expediency. 

We  must  aim  higher.  We  cannot  control  men 
by  physical  means  alone.  Man  is  a  spirit,  not  a 
body  merely.  The  spirit  in  men  laughs  at  chains, 
jails,  scaffolds.  Even  the  criminal  may  be  a 
transcendentalist,  and  stand  unmoved  before 
juries  and  their  verdicts,  judges  and  their  de 
crees.  He  may  break  your  statute  law,  and  yet 
be  a  martyr  to  the  law  of  Freedom.  Better  a  free 
criminal  than  a  caged  and  fettered  saint. 

How  to  organize  these  sentiments  into  a  sys 
tem,  how  to  apply  them  in  the  treatment  of  our 
ignorant  and  criminal  classes,  is  the  duty  of  the 
statesman.  Let  us  for  a  time  neglect  tariffs  and 
finances,  if  we  must,  and  give  some  attention  to 
this  vital  subject. 

The  State  must  not  join  hands  with  an  institu 
tional  Church  to  accomplish  this  needed  work. 
Science  and  superstition  cannot  work  together. 
But  there  may  be  a  secular  ethics,  as  there  is  a 
secular  physiology  and  psychology.  Ethics  must' 
be  rooted  in  the  Cosmos,  not  merely  in  tradi 
tional  religion. 


136  OTHER   ESSAYS. 

If  the  Laws  of  the  Universe  protect  and  up 
hold  crime,  it  is  futile  for  either  Church  or  State 
to  attempt  its  eradication.  But  if  there  are  Laws 
of  Right  and  Wrong  in  nature,  they  may  be  dis 
covered  and  taught  by  the  State,  as  the  laws  of 
gravity  are. 

The  State  instructs  the  farmer  how  to  raise 
wheat  and  corn.  Shall  it  not  instruct  us  how  to 
raise  Men?  It  teaches  the  farmer  how  to  eradi 
cate  weeds  and  parasites.  Shall  it  not  instruct 
us  how  to  eradicate  vice  and  evil  ?  Are  not  Men 
the  most  important  crop  which  can  be  produced 
in  any  nation?  Let  us  have  a  Bureau  of  An 
thropology,  with  daily  bulletins. 

THE  TYRANNY  OF  THE  TRUST. 

While  we  are  talking  about  the  tyranny  of  the 
trust,  let  us  not  forget  that  there  are  many  kinds 
of  trusts  and  many  kinds  of  tyranny. 

The  workingman,  too,  has  his  trust;  namely, 
the  labor  union;  organized  and  maintained  for 
the  benefit  of  its  members,  conducted  on  princi 
ples  no  less  selfish,  no  less  oppressive  to  the  rest 
of  society,  than  are  the  principles  on  which  the 
trust  of  the  capitalist'  is  organized. 

Do  you  not  conspire,  my  good  workingmen,  do 
you  not  verily  plot  together  how  you  may  extort 
higher  wages  from  your  employer? 


OTHER   ESS  AYS.  137 

Do  you  not  seek  by  all  means,  fair  or  unfair,  to 

^et  and  keep  a  monopoly  of  your  particular  kind 

•f  labor,  to  be  sold  only  for  such  prices  as  you 

y  fix,  be  the  needs  of  your  employer  and  the 

ublic  what  they  may? 

Your  trust,  my  good  workingman,  adopts 
methods  which  no  capitalistic  trust  has  yet  dared 
to  employ.  What  capitalistic  trust  or  corpora 
tion  has  yet  dared  to  say  to  the  public :  "Buy  our 
goods  willingly,  at  our  price, -or  we  will  force 
you?  If  you  dare  to  buy  elsewhere,  or  adopt  a 
substitute,  we  will  stone  you,  shoot  you,  dyna 
mite  your  homes,  burn  and  destroy  the  property 
of  those  whom  you  would  patronize  instead  of 
us!" 

And  yet,  this  is  often  the  policy  of  working- 
men  incited  by  mistaken  leaders. 

You  have  a  right  to  demand  higher  wages,  my 
friends,  and  so  has  the  capitalist  a  right  to  de 
mand  higher  prices  for  his  goods ;  but  neither  has 
a  right  to  coerce  the  public  market. 

So  great  is  the  sympathy  of  the  public  for 
workingmen,  that  the  tyranny  of  the  labor  union 
is  tolerated  with  little  criticism,  while  the  capi 
talistic  trust  is  made  the  object  of  universal 
reprobation. 

Let  us  have  fair  play,  brother.     It  is  a  selfish 


i38  OTHER   ESSAYS. 

struggle  on  both  sides.  Let  not  pot  call  kettle 
black. 

Out  of  all  this  strife,  order  and  justice  will 
emerge,  if  we  let  the  Natural  Laws  have  their 
course.  Let  your  trust  fix  its  prices;  let  your 
labor  union  fix  its  scale  of  wages.  The  public 
will  determine  whether  it  will  pay  these  prices.' 

Selfishness  forever  overreaches  its  own  ends. 
When  we  forget  or  ignore  the  Great  Laws,  and 
seek  to  rob  our  brother  by  injustice,  then  falls 
our  clever  scheme,  and  we  are  balked. 

So  long  as  the  labor  union  does  not  try  to  pre 
vent  the  employer  from  hiring  cheaper  men,  so 
long  as  the  trust  does  not  try  to  force  the  public 
to  buy  certain  goods  at  certain  prices,  these  or 
ganizations  can  do  no  great  harm.  They  may 
make  certain  demands ;  but  conditions  which  they 
cannot  control  will  determine  whether  these  de 
mands  will  be  met. 

The  price  of  a  thing  at  last  is  determined  by 
the  needs  of  the  purchaser.  How  much  will  you 
pay,  rather  than  do  without  this  thing,  or  use 
something  else  instead  of  it? 

Some  will  pay  more  than  you.  Some  not  so 
much.  The  mean  is  the  maximum  price.  Above 
this,  no  trust  can  force  its  prices,  though  it  had 
omnipotent  power,  and  all  monopoly,  and  could 
command  armies  and  Senates  to  aid  its  purpose. 


OTHER   ESSAYS.  139 

How  much  will  you  pay  for  certain  labor? 
How  much  can  you  pay,  considering  the  state 
of  the  market  for  your  goods  ? 

This  is  the  maximum  wage.  No  labor  union, 
no  striking  or  rioting,  can  force  wages  above  this 
figure,  though  legions  of  angels  were  to  help  the 
cause  of  the  strikers. 

There  are  certain  Laws,  my  brother,  which 
neither  you  nor  I,  nor  any  workingman  nor  capi 
talist,  ever  made  or  modified,  or  ever  can. 

Let  us  get  sight  of  These,  and  learn  to  trust 
in  Them.  They  are  the  Supreme  Laws.  Be 
yond  Them  is  no  appeal.  No  man,  no  deity,  can 
set  Them  aside.  When  your  Labor  Union  and 
your  Trust  perceive  these  Laws  and  their  Ma 
jesty,  there  will  be  less  folly  to  make  the  angels 
weep. 

OUR   BEST   DEFENSES. 

The  best  safeguard  of  any  nation  is  not  its 
army  and  navy,  its  police  and  militia,  but  its  well- 
diffused  Productions. 

Our  best  defenses  are  not  muskets  and  can 
non,  forts  and  battleships ;  but  steam  engines, 
looms,  reapers  and  threshers,  lumber  mills,  and 
other  agencies  for  the  creation  of  wealth. 

Famine    cannot    conquer    a    people    who    are 


140  OTHER   ESSAYS. 

armed  with  these  weapons ;  but  cannon  and  mus 
kets  are  powerless  against  such  a  foe. 

When  men  are  prosperous  they  are  slow  to 
mutiny.  It  is  your  hungry  mobs  who  overturn 
thrones  and  senates.  When  corn  is  scarce,  com 
plaints  are  plentiful.  These  are  a  crop  that 
yields  best  in  years  of  famine. 

Democracy,  or  any  measure  thereof,  is  safe  only 
whilst  the  people  are  prosperous  and  satisfied. 
Let  famine  appear,  and  wave  his  gaunt  arms  in 
the  land,  and  lo,  thousands  rally  and  follow  him 
to  political  folly  or  fields  of  riot  and  bloodshed. 
Those  who  have  bread,  however  justly  they  got 
it,  shall  now  surrender  it  to  hungry  mobs.  Those 
who  have  plate,  silken  garments,  elegant  furnish 
ings,  are  somehow  conceived  to  be  the  authors  of 
the  people's  misery,  and  on  them  the  wrath- 
storms  of  the  mob  do  break. 

I  do  not  say  that  rich  men  never  oppress  poor 
men.  I  do  not  say  that  the  madness  of  mobs  is 
never  justifiable.  But  I  do  affirm,  and  history 
bears  me  out,  that  when  the  common  people  suf 
fer,  the  rich  are  not  the  only  cause  of  it.  They, 
too,  have  their  privations,  in  times  of  panic ;  and 
though  they  have  bread  to  eat,  and  coal  to  warm 
them,  they  do  often  suffer  quite  as  keenly  as  the 
poor. 

The  poor  man,  at  his  humble  board,  where 


OTHER   ESSAYS.  141 

bread  and  water  may  be  the  family  fare,  does  not 
realize  what  hardships  the  rich  man  suffers  in 
times  of  financial  depression.  He  carries  bur 
dens  the  poor  man  knows  not  of.  His  days  are 
feverish  with  care,  and  his  nights  without  re 
freshing  sleep.  He  must  think  not  only  of  his 
family  but  of  the  families  of  many  others  who 
depend  upon  his  business  for  their  bread.  If  he 
fail,  scores,  perhaps  hundreds,  fail  with  him. 

Yet,  in  the  midst  of  all  his  trials,  when  his 
heart  and  his  head  ache  with  the  burdens  he  car 
ries,  the  poor  man  envies  him,  and  sometimes 
plots  against  his  very  life.  Think  of  this,  broth 
ers,  when  you  assemble  in  mad  council  to  de 
nounce  the  rich  man.  Think  of  this,  when  you 
are  plotting  to  explode  dynamite  under  his  resi 
dence  or  factory. 

THE  CURE  FOR  RIOTING. 

There  is  certainly  no  excuse  for  violence  in  this 
land,  in  the  interests  of  poor  men's  rights.  If 
men  cannot  content  themselves  to  get  their  de 
sired  ends  by  ballots,  shall  they  be  allowed  to  get 
them  by  bullets  ? 

Ballots  are  bad  enough,  in  the  hands  of  mad 
men.  What  shall  we  do  when  they  resort  to 
muskets  and  dynamite? 

In   desperate     cases,    desperate   measures    are 


142  OTHER   ESSAYS. 

justified,  to  preserve  the  peace.  If  men  will  not 
be  quiet,  we  must  make  them  so.  "He  that  taketh 
the  sword  shall  die  by  the  sword."  When  your 
workingmen,  or  (most  likely),  your  idle  men, 
seize  arms;  to  intimidate  their  employers  or  other 
workingmen  (or  men  who  wish  to  work),  it  is 
time  that  the  State  should  rouse  from  its  torpor, 
and  stretch  out  its  arm  to  protect  its  loyal  sub 
jects. 

If  there  must  be  bloodshed,  let  there  be  blood 
shed.  This  fever  of  riot  will  abate,  when  suf 
ficient  blood  has  been  let. 

Let  the  State  beware  of  hasty  anger.  Let  it 
beware  of  partisanship.  But  let  it  not  hesitate 
to  shed  blood  in  the  interests  of  law  and  justice. 

We  often  hear  the  assertion  that  the  militia  is 
never  called  out  in  the  interests  of  the  working- 
men,  but  only  to  protect  the  property  of  the  rich. 

If  this  be  so;  why  is  it  ? 

Surely,  because  only  the  property  of  the  rich 
is  threatened  with  destruction! 

Your  mad  mobs  do  not  attack  and  destroy  the 
homes  of  workingmen.  If  they  threaten  the  lives 
of  workingmen  it  is  to  prevent  them  from  work 
ing,  when  certain  other  workingmen  have  struck ! 

In  such  a  case,  the  State  should  call  its  militia, 
to  protect  the  workingmen  who  wish  to  work. 

Demagogues  call  this  protecting  the  employer, 


OTHER   ESSAYS.  143 

and  intimidating  the  employees !  So  distorted  is 
the  vision  of  him  who  has  resolved  to  look  only 
for  his  own  selfish  interests! 

In  this  Republic,  we  have  agreed  to  refer  all 
questions  of  politics  to  the  ballot.  Since  we  have 
so  compacted,  let  us  abide  by  our  agreement,  and 
put  down  all  appeals  to  violence. 

If  we  must  use  artillery  in  the  interests  of 
peace,  let  it  be  used  in  time.  Let  us  blow  some 
of  these  wild  ruffians  into  the  air,  before  they 
succeed  in  blowing  other  and  better  citizens 
there ! 

Are  these  harsh  methods,  which  I  propose? 
Then  is  the  knife  of  the  surgeon  harsh  when 
used  to  cut  out  a  cancerous  or  gangrened  spot 
which  threatens  the  body's  health. 

Our  tenderness  toward  the  ruffian  may  be 
harshest  cruelty  toward  the  State.  We  need 
brave  men  in  executive  offices,  who  will  neither 
fear  nor  flatter  the  mob.  When  our  public  of 
fices  hang  upon  the  favor  of  mobs,  chaos  is  come. 

Justice  flees  from  the  land  where  her  ministers 
dare  not  defend  her.  Public  peace  is  not  to  be 
purchased  by  timidity  or  fear.  Only  the  brave 
deserve  the  boon  of  peace.  Cowards  will  not 
long  enjoy  it. 


144  OTHER   ESSAYS. 

PRACTICAL  WISDOM. 

The  value  of  any  man's  writing  or  speaking 
lies  in  his  interpretation  of  his  own  experience. 
So  far  as  I  can  apply  wisdom  to  my  own  affairs, 
they  become  of  interest  and  value  to  other  peo 
ple.  If  I  am  overcome  and  defeated  by  my  af 
fairs  ;  if  I  am  utterly  routed  and  driven  from  the 
field,  why  should  I  tell  other  people  how  to  fight  ? 

Here  is  my  kitchen,  with  its  multitude  of 
problems.  Shall  I  run  away  from  it,  and  leave 
some  poor  Bridget  to  fight  the  battle?  If  I  do, 
what  right  have  I  to  complain  when  victory 
leaves  my  domestic  banners?  Why  should  I  de 
sert  my  post,  and  yet  expect  a  barbarian  lieuten 
ant  to  hold  the  fort  against  the  enemy? 

Your  wisdom,  my  good  philosopher,  is  halt 
and  blind,  if  it  limp  and  stumble  in  the  kitchen, 
the  dining  room,  the  parlor.  Let  it  not  go 
abroad,  to  stalk  bravely  in  public  highways,  until 
it  have  learned  to  use  its  eyes  and  legs  at  home. 
Will  you  shout  in  the  Senate,  good  man,  and  tell 
the  Nation  how  to  bake  its  bread,  when  you  have 
miserably  run  away  from  your  own  kitchen? 
Stand  by,  stand  by,  and  see  that  your  own  house 
is  in  order,  before  you  essay  to  keep  house  for 
the  Nation. 

Good  preacher,  does  your  chimney  draw?     Is 


OTHER   ESSAYS.  145 

your  cellar  sweet  and  clean?  Does  your  roof 
leak?  Look  to  these  things,  and  then  come  and 
preach  to  your  people.  Do  not  defer  perfection 
even  in  little  things  until  you  get  to  heaven.  Do 
you  know  how  your  pie  is  made?  Do  you  know 
the  constitutent  elements  thereof?  Do  not  ask 
a  blessing  on  your  dinner  until  you  have  exam 
ined  its  credentials.  Taste  and  see  that  the  lard 
is  good.  Eat  no  stale  meats  for  conscience'  sake. 
The  Lord's  supper  is  not  more  worthy  of  your 
attention  than  is  the  supper  served  daily  at  your 
own  table.  Look  to  the  elements  thereof.  Do 
not  attack  original  sin  while  there  is  anything 
in  your  pantry  which  ought  to  be  reformed.  Cast 
out  the  devils  from  your  own  house,  and  then  you 
shall  have  power  to  cast  them  out  of  other 
houses  also. 

THE  RICHES   OF  THE   POOR. 

It  seems  to  me  that  the  education  of  any  man 
is  incomplete,  and  he  is  unable  to  properly  appre 
ciate  the  blessings  of  our  wondrous  civilization, 
who  has  never  lived  for  a  time  in  a  condition  of 
semibarbarism.  We  are  born  into  this  heritage 
of  the  ages,  this  structure  which  we  call  civiliza 
tion,  the  accumulated  labors  of  so  many  cen 
turies,  and  we  do  not  properly  appreciate  it  for 
lack  of  contrast.  We  think  we  are  poor,  and  we 


I46  OTHER   ESSAYS. 

talk  of  poverty  that  accompanies  progress,  and 
many  of  us  bewail  our  lot,  envying  our  neigh 
bors  their  greater  possessions.  But  we  do  not 
know  that  the  poorest  of  us  is  rich,  compared 
with  the  average  condition  of  life  a  few  cen 
turies  ago.  It  is  a  characteristic  of  human  na 
ture  that  we  soon  become  indifferent  to  our  pos 
sessions,  and  however  much  we  have,  we  cry  for 
more.  So  nimble  is  the  fancy  and  so  insatiable 
are  the  desires  of  man,  that  no  condition  is  so 
good  but  that  we  can  imagine  a  better,  and  no 
wealth  so  great  but  that  we  wish  it  greater. 

The  education  of  any  individual  is  incomplete, 
then,  unless  it  includes  at  least  a  brief  experience 
in  that  primitive  life  which  was  the  best  that 
princes  had  a  few  centuries  ago.  Let  a  man  go 
into  the  wilderness  and  pitch  his  lodge  there, 
building  with  what  materials  he  finds  at  hand, 
adapting  his  desires  to  his  facilities,  and  deter 
mining  within  himself  to  be  content  with  what 
he  has,  and  he  will  learn  lessons  that  no  school 
or  college  ever  taught  its  pupils.  With  a  little 
canvas,  costing  perhaps  three  or  four  dollars, 
some  boards  picked  up  where  wind  or  tide  has 
left  them,,  some  rusty  nails  drawn  from  these 
same  boards,  and  with  none  of  the  tools  of  civil 
ization  save  an  axe,  a  saw,  and  a  hammer,  let 
him  build  a  habitation  for  himself.  Let  him  for 


OTHER   ESSAYS.  147 

dishes  use  sea  shells,  tin  cans,  or  whatever  he 
may  find  in  the  back  yard  of  civilization ;  let  him 
sleep  on  a  bedstead  of  boards,  with  perhaps  a 
mattress  of  dried  grass ;  for  chairs,  use  boxes ; 
for  a  table,  a  shelf  of  boards ;  let  him,  I  say,  try 
an  experiment  of  this  kind,  and  he  will  very  soon 
realize  his  immense  debt  to  civilization ;  the  im 
mense  debt  of  even  the  poorest  man  to  the  past 
ages.  And  I  think  that  if  he  has  ever  complained 
of  poverty,  he  will  never  do  so  again,  however 
seeming  hard  his  portion  in  society  may  be. 

We  use  our  blessings  thoughtlessly,  carelessly, 
with  no  proper  appreciation  of  their  worth.  The 
commonest  things  in  the  poorest  household  rep 
resent  the  thought  and  labor  of  centuries.  From 
the  tallow  dip  to  the  kerosene  lamp  is  a  longer 
way  than  people  who  use  lamps  are  commonly 
aware.  Give  me  a  list  of  the  things  used  in  the 
poorest  household,  and  I  will  convince  the  own 
ers  that  they  are  richer  than  Julius  Caesar  was. 
Our  young  men  envy  the  fame  of  ancient 
worthies,  but  lament  their  own  poverty  in  the 
midst  of  a  wealth  such  as  these  same  ancients 
never  saw.  How  poor  was  Homer,  Virgil,  Cic 
ero,  Demosthenes,  Plutarch,  not  to  mention  Dio 
genes,  Socrates,  Epictetus,  compared  with  the 
poorest  schoolboy  of  today. 

I  look  over  the  scanty  array  of  goods  in  my 


148  OTHER   ESSAYS. 

camp,  an  outfit  which  would  surely  entitle  me  to 
the  reputation  of  poverty  in  any  village  or  city, 
and  I  wonder  as  I  look  at  each  article  whether 
the  civilization  of  Greece  or  Rome  could  have 
furnished  anything  to  be  compared  with  it.  First, 
here  is  this  pen  with  which  I  am  writing,  and 
the  ink  into  which  I  dip  it.  Instead  of  steel  pens, 
at  a  penny  apiece,  the  ancient  used  a  stylus,  or  a 
quill,  or  a  sharpened  reed.  Instead  of  a  fine 
linen  paper,  of  marvelous  texture,  he  used  the 
bark  of  trees,  or  the  skins  of  beasts.  I  thought  it 
fine,  last  summer,  in  the  Adirondacks,  to  write 
some  letters  to  my  distant  friends  upon  white 
birch  bark,  freshly  peeled  from  the  tree.  There 
was  a  poetry  in  the  act,  and  my  words  gained 
somewhat,  I  doubt  not,  from  the  fragrance  of 
the  bark  and  the  atmosphere  of  the  forest  which 
it  conveyed ;  but  suppose  I  were  compelled  al 
ways  to  use  that  bark?  suppose  it  were  the  only 
available  material  for  books  and  papers  ?  I  think 
I  appreciate  my  linen  paper  better  after  using 
birch  bark  for  a  few  times. 

Before  me  lies  a  box  of  parlor  matches.  They 
cost  but  a  penny  a  box,  but  what  a  convenience ! 
Think  of  the  flint  and  steel,  my  young  friend, 
every  time  you  strike  a  match,  and  try  to  realize 
your  advantage  over  Caesar  and  Cicero  in  this 
one  respect.  On  the  table  lies  my  watch,  ticking 


OTHER   ESSAYS.  149 

away  the  seconds  of  time.  Compare  this  won 
drous  mechanism  with  the  sundial,  the  water- 
clock,  or  the  hourglass  of  the  ancients  There  is 
no  home  so  poor  but  that  the  clock  is  found  in  it ; 
and  yet  the  home  of  Virgil,  or  Caesar,  or  Cicero 
did  not  contain  that  common  article. 

On  my  table  are  a  few  books, — only  a  few,  for 
I  came  out  from  civilization  to  get  away  from 
books  and  all  the  cares  and  anxieties  connected 
with  them.  Think  of  what  is  meant  by  a  book, 
even  the  cheapest,  a  five-cent  pamphlet.  It  brings 
to  mind  a  whole  train  of  activities  which  were 
unknown  to  the  ancient  world.  The  typesetter, 
the  pressman,  the  binder,  are  but  three  in  a  thou 
sand  occupations  involved  in  the  production  and 
delivery  of  this  book.  The  paper  of  which  it  is 
made  represents  a  vast  industry,  which  takes  you 
into  the  cotton  fields  or  the  woods  for  the  stock ; 
into  the  alleys  of  cities  with  the  rag-picker ;  into 
the  paper  mill,  the  wholesale  house,  the  freight 
car,  the  express  wagon,  the  printing  office ;  and 
at  last  into  one  of  Uncle  Sam's  mail  pouches, 
where  the  little  pamphlet  rode  safely  and  swiftly 
to  your  distant  home. 

Think  of  the  train  of  industries  which  are  in 
volved  in  the  manufacture  of  a  common  pam 
phlet,  I  say,  and  then  try  to  appreciate  the  art 
which  gives  you  the  company  of  the  greatest 


150  OTHER   ESSAYS. 

souls  in  the  world's  past  history.  Think  of  what 
a  book  meant  in  ancient  times,  when  all  books 
were  slowly  and  toilsomely  copied  by  slaves,  and 
often  the  cost  of  a  single  volume  would  buy  a 
modern  library.  Think  of  this,  I  say,  when  you 
pick  up  the  cheapest  pamphlet,  and  treat  it  with 
as  much  reverence  as  its  contents  will  permit.  A 
mere  book,  without  reference  to  its  contents,  is  a 
thing  to  be  wondered  at ;  how  priceless,  then,  is 
a  good  book,  which  brings  to  me  the  thought  of 
a  great  soul.  He  was  himself,  perhaps,  isolated, 
unsocial,  in  his  own  day ;  and  but  for  this  book, 
even  his  associates  would  not  have  known  him 
truly;  how  great  is  its  value,  then,  to  me,  who 
would  not  even  have  heard  of  him,  much  less 
communed  with  his  immortal  thought,  were  it 
not  for  this  book. 

And  so  I  look  over  the  few  articles  on  my  rude 
table,  articles  which  are  found  in  the  poorest 
homes  in  the  land,  and  I  find  that  they  connect 
me  with  a  world  such  as  Caesar  and  Cicero  never 
dreamed  of,  in  the  splendor  of  old  Roman  days. 
I  perceive  that  poverty  in  the  nineteenth  century 
is  better  than  was  the  wealth  of  the  olden  times ; 
and  as  fraternal  love  increases  among  men,  and 
the  benefits  of  this  wondrous  civilization  are 
more  and  more  diffused  among  the  people,  the 
estate  of  the  humblest  shall  be  better  than  that 
of  lords  and  princes  in  the  ancient  world. 


TV 
<* 


OTHER   ESSAYS.  151 

SOCIALISM  AND  INDIVIDUALISM. 

Our  "advanced  thinkers"  who  are  crying  for 
Socialism  should  stop  and  consider  the  relation 
of  majority  rule  to  individual  freedom.  Social 
ism,  like  all  other  forms  of  Government  control, 
means  the  domination  of  the  minority  by  the  ma 
jority. 

The  freedom  of  the  minority  is  something 
which  the  average  Socialist  does  not  consider ; 
but  it  must  be  considered,  and  largely  realized,  by 
any  system  worthy  the  name  of  philosophy. 

A  church  establishment,  supported  by  the 
State,  is  one  of  the  most  offensive  features  of  this 
sort  of  "Government."  People  who  want  such 
an  establishment  should  be  free  to  have  it,  but 
they  should  also  be  free  to  pay  for  it.  Why 
should  they  tax  for  its  support  those  who  have 
no  use  for  it?  In  America,  we  have  no  State 
church,  but  we  exempt  church  property  from 
taxation,  which  is  another  way  of  compelling 
those  who  do  not  want  the  services  of  the  church 
to  help  support  the  institution.  The  assumption 
is,  that  all  people  need  the  church,  and  are  ii- 
rectly  or  indirectly  benefited  by  its  ministrations ; 
and  herein  is  the  danger  of  all  such  paternalism 
in  Government.  When  one  body  of  people  as 
sume  to  say  what  is  best  for  another  body  of  peo- 


152  OTHER   ESSAYS. 

pie,  they  are  quite  likely  to  make  mistakes ;  and 
if  they  insist  upon  carrying  out  their  ideas,  they 
are  quite  likely  to  become  tyrannical  and  op 
pressive. 

Individual  freedom  is  yet  a  long  way  off  in 
America,  notwithstanding  our  noisy  celebrations 
of  Independence.  Our  Eagle  screams  vocifer 
ously,  and  spreads  his  broad  wings  in  exultation 
over  the  Freedom  we  have  achieved;  but  those 
who  look  closest  find  that  our  Freedom  is  yet 
largely  an  empty  name.  The  fact  is,  the  develop 
ment  of  the  principle  of  Freedom  among  us  is 
scarcely  yet  begun ;  and  the  efforts  of  socialists 
to  make  "Government"  the  owner  and  manager 
of  all  things  is  not  in  the  direction  of  greater  lib 
erty. 

It  is  not  necessary,  even  if  it  were  advisable, 
to  institute  an  elaborate  socialism,  in  order  that 
"the  people"  may  own  and  manage  the  industrial 
resources  of  the  country.  The  only  way  for  "the 
people"  to  own  and  manage  industries  is  to  buy 
them,  with  legitimate  money.  Let  those  who 
have  money,  and  who  wish  to  participate  in  these 
enterprises,  acquire  stock  in  them,  in  a  business 
like  manner.  Why  should  I  be  unwillingly  taxed 
to  buy  stock  in  a  particular  industry,  any  more 
than  to  buy  an  interest  in  a  church  ? 

If  we  do  not  like  the  prices  which  a  certain 


OTHER   ESSAYS.  153 

corporation  charges  us  for  its  products,  we  have 
a  perfect  right  to  go  into  business  for  ourselves, 
or  agree  to  patronize  some  other  corporation. 
We  have  no  right  to  drive  the  offending  corpora 
tion  out  of  business  by  the  force  of  legislation,  or 
by  condemning  and  confiscating  its  property.  If 
we  must  fight  the  Devil,  let  us  fight  him  with  fire, 
not  with  holy  water.  Let  us  meet  him  upon  his 
own  ground,  with  his  own  weapons,  not  appeal 
to  mere  force  of  numbers,  which  is  at  last  an  ap 
peal  to  arms. 

Ballots  at  last  rest  upon  bullets.  We  enact  a 
law  that  the  corporation  shall  sell  us  its  business 
at  a  certain  figure.  This  means  that  we  will  come 
with  guns  and  take  this  business  at  this  figure, 
if  said  corporation  dare  to  object  to  our  legisla 
tion.  Is  this  Justice?  Is  this  Liberty? 

WORLD-CONQUERERS   OF  TODAY. 

Is  it  not  possible  that  our  traditions  of  culture 
are  somewhat  musty  and  antiquated?  For  cen 
turies  it  has  been  the  habit  to  cast  some  reproach 
upon  business.  Literature,  law,  medicine,  sci 
ence,  philosophy,  have  been  deemed  worthy  ob 
jects  for  intellectual  energy  ;  but  manufacture  and 
trade  have  not  been  quite  respectable. 

Our  twentieth   century  will  see  a  change  in 


154  OTHER   ESSAYS. 

these  traditions.  Under  the  new  and  complex 
conditions  of  modern  industrial  life,  business  suc 
cess  depends  upon  intellectual  gifts  of  as  high  an 
order  as  were  ever  required  for  success  in  the  so- 
called  professions. 

The  successful  merchant  or  manufacturer  of 
today  is  no  village  magnate,  but  a  world-con 
queror,  like  Alexander  or  Caesar  of  old.  Vast 
schemes  of  conquest  are  planned  and  carried  out 
under  his  direction.  Fleets  of  ships  obey  his  or 
ders.  Vast  systems  of  railways  and  telegraphs 
serve  his  aims.  Armies  of  men  await  his  pl&^ire. 
Can  any  common  brain  command  suchrvast  re 
sources,  plan  and  fitly  execute  such  vast  designs? 

Let  me  sing  thy  praises,  O  man  of  affairs,  im 
mersed  in  these  wide-throbbing  energies.  Let 
Virgil  sing  of  arms  and  the  man  who  wielded 
them ;  let  me  be  the  bard  of  the  conquerors  of 
trade. 

These  are  the  agencies  that  are  redeeming  this 
world  from  savagery  and  darkness.  'Tis  here 
upon  this  earth  that  man  must  find  his  heaven. 

Withdraw  thy  gaze,  O  yearning  poet,  from  the 
cloud-realms  of  the  great  beyond.  Look  here; 
— and  in  the  conquests  of  science  and  invention 
thou  shalt  see  the  redemption  of  the  race. 

Come  forth  from  thy  dim  speculations,  O  mys 
tic  soul,  thy  search  after  Spirit  and  its  native 


OTHER   ESSAYS.  155 

realm;  and  see  that  here  upon  this  time-scarred 
earth  are  all  the  forces  of  the  Creative  Spirit  man 
ifest.  In  flower  and  tree,  in  bird  and  beast,  in 
all  the  beauty  that  doth  clothe  the  earth,  thou 
shalt  behold  the  revelations  of  that  Spirit  which 
thou  art  seeking  in  the  dim  beyond. 

Here,  on  this  earth,  is  man's  divinest  home. 
Around  him  burst  on  every  side  the  revelations 
of  Creative  Life. 

Let  us  be  bold  and  free,  O  brothers  all;  and 
wait  no  more  for  visions  from  beyond,  but  turn 
our  eyes  to  see  the  glories  here  and  now  in  this 
our  living  world !  Here  is  our  heaven,  here  our 
true  abode.  Here,  in  the  pulsing  energies  o£ 
this  great  world,  we  shall  outwork  our  highest 
aims. 

Go  forth  and  conquer,  O  aspiring  soul.  Sit 
not  at  home  in  idle  dreaming.  No  world  is  fairer 
than  this  earth  of  ours.  It  calls  us  from  the  si 
lence  and  the  dream,  and  bids  us  Act  and  Con 
quer. 

Not  in  the  airy  nothings  of  the  poet's  dream 
world  shall  our  valor  find  its  free  expression ; 
but  in  this  our  actual  world ;  this  world  of  dust 
and  smoke,  this  world  of  rocks  and  soil. 

Here  is  our  field  of  battle.  Let  us  go  forth  to 
win.  We  shall  not  find  a  worthier  field.  To 
grasp  the  plow,  to  wield  the  sounding  hammer, 


156  OTHER   ESSAYS. 

to  guide  the  cunning  engine  in  the  mill;  to  dig 
and  carve  and  delve;  to  plow  and  execute  the 
vast  designs  of  trade ; — these  are  thy  victories,  O 
valiant  soul,  in  this  our  throbbing  world. 

MY  PHILOSOPHY. 

I  am  living  in  this  world,  and  am  saturated 
with  its  Realities.  Spectral  Other-worlds  exist 
not  for  me,  whilst  I  dwell  in  this.  I  eat,  drink, 
sleep,  breathe,  as  performing  a  Divine  Ritual. 
These  acts  to  me  are  highest  worship,  for 
through  them  only  are  all  other  acts  performed. 

The  earth,  the  sea,  the  sky,  are  divine.  Life 
is  a  continual  miracle. 

I  recognize  the  difference  between  Noumenon 
and  Phenomenon,  and  know  that  Diversity  is  but 
the  mask  of  Unity;  but  whilst  I  am  myself  a 
Phenomenon,  I  will  live  true  to  Phenomena.  I 
will  not  mourn  that  I  cannot  adjust  the  facts  of 
the  material  world  to  the  Laws  of  the  Spiritual. 
I  am  content  to  know  that  each  at  last  consists 
with  the  other,  and  that  both  are  one  in  the  Uni 
versal  Order. 

I  recognize  Appetite,  Passion,  Desire,  Action, 
as  attributes  of  Man  in  Time,  which  are  not  to 
be  denied,  but  guided  by  Reason.  Whilst  I  am 
here,  in  the  realm  of  Phenomena,  I  will  live  true 
to  them,  and  not  accuse  my  life  with  continual 


OTHER   ESSAYS.  157 

negations  and  suppressions.  I  am  here  to  Live, 
not  to  Die:  and  Life  is  Action,  not  Repression. 

When  man  has  discovered  the  prime  Secret  of 
life,  namely,  that  his  nature  is  Spiritual  and  Uni 
versal,  then  first  can  he  rightly  live  in  the  Phe 
nomenal.  If  he  abuse  this  Secret,  by  making  of 
it  a  Doctrine,  by  dwelling  in  it  abstractly,  as  some 
of  the  Hindus  did,  he  forfeits  his  Power,  and  be 
comes  a  Nonentity.  His  life  then  is  the  chief  il 
lusion  among  all  Illusions. 

Air  is  the  life  of  the  body;  but  shall  we  stop 
breathing  to  contemplate  that  fact?  Life  for  us 
exists  only  as  we  appropriate  it  through  Action. 
When  we  cease  to  Act,  we  cease  to  exist. 

This,  then,  is  my  World-philosophy,  which  I 
propose  to  live  by,  and  to  die  by  if  that  be  neces 
sary. 

DIVINE  LIFE. 

I  am  sure  that  no  son  of  God  ever  wrought  in 
more  divine  elements  than  these  by  which  we  are 
surrounded  here.  I  am  sure  that  the  miracles  of 
Christ  were  no  greater  ones  than  these  that  we 
common  mortals  perform  in  our  every-day  tasks. 

The  forces  that  ally  themselves  with  the  work 
of  the  laborer  today  are  the  same  that  Christ  com 
manded,  the  same  that  Moses  wrought  upon  in 
his  Egyptian  marvels;  and  though  the  ends  be 


158  OTHER   ESSAYS. 

different,  the  power  that  uses  them  is  ever  the 
same. 

Do  not,  O  zealous  preacher,  separate  these  acts 
of  common  humanity  from  the  realm  of  miracle! 
Do  not  say,  Christ  wrought  miracles,  but  all 
other  men  perform  common  acts.  All  the  acts 
of  man  are  miracles. 

Who  can  explain  the  simplest  act  of  any  man? 
A  shovel  full  of  dirt  is  composed  of  most  won 
drous  potencies.  These  atoms  vibrate  to  unseen 
and  unknown  forces.  The  forces  of  the  stars 
play  upon  them;  gravity,  saturating  all  the  infi 
nite  spaces,  saturates  this  dirt  also,  and  binds  it 
to  the  distant  stars ;  love  and  hate  play  among 
these  atoms ;  attraction  and  repulsion ;  they  are 
Alive  and  Conscious ;  they  know  their  place,  and 
keep  it ;  they  obey  the  word  of  Creative  Life,  and 
rise  to  clothe  the  Thoughts  of  God  in  beauty. 
They  play  at  transformation  constantly,  and  take 
now  one  form,  now  another;  and  they  form  in 
the  course  of  the  circling  ages  the  countless 
masks  worn  by  the  ever-changing  Spirit  of  Life. 
One  endless  flux,  one  never-ceasing  round  of 
change,  engages  them.  Who  shall  say  that  they 
are  common  and  cheap?  Who  shall  scorn  them, 
in  their  humblest  form?  They  are  Divine.  Let 
us  handle  them  with  reverence. 

It  is  our  blindness  that  makes  the  world  com- 


OTHER   ESSAYS.  159 

mon,  and  our  life  cheap  and  uninteresting.  It  is 
our  ignorance  that  leads  us  to  place  divinity  else 
where,  to  think  of  God  as  afar  off,  in  some  other 
world,  any  other  than  this  in  which  we  now  dwell. 

God  (that  is  but  one  name  for  it)  is  the  Spirit 
that  is  in  all  things,  in  every  place ;  and  it  is  re 
vealed  only  by  this  spiritual  perception.  The 
perception  of  the  ancient  seer  can  not  reveal  God 
to  us  of  today.  We  may  or  may  not  believe  their 
report ;  the  fact  remains  that  we  must  see  God 
with  our  own  eyes  before  we  can  know  that  He 
exists. 

Books  do  not  reveal  God.  They  only  record 
the  revelations  which  other  men  enjoyed, 
through  their  vision ;  and  if  we  would  know  that 
God  Is,  we  must  see  Him  as  these  other  il 
lumined  men  saw  Him. 

What  we  commonly  call  belief  in  God  is  only 
belief  in  a  tradition.  We  hear  that  Moses  saw 
God,  that  Jesus  knew  Him,  and  we  accept  these 
reports,  in  the  faith  of  our  simple  hearts.  But 
we  do  not  thus  believe  in  God. 

The  true  aim  of  religion  is  not  to  teach  men 
that  God  revealed  Himself  to  Moses,  or  some 
other  man  of  old ;  but  to  show  how  they  may  see 
Him  for  themselves  today.  When  we  ourselves 
have  seen  God,  we  can  very  well  spare  the  vision 
of  Moses.  We  are  not  then  deeply  concerned  to 


160  OTHER   ESSAYS. 

know  whether  Moses  really  saw  Him.  We  do 
not  care  whether  Moses  was  a  man  or  a  tradition ; 
whether  Christ  Jesus  was  a  person  or  an  ideal ; 
for  we  have  now  gained  through  our  own  facul 
ties  what  these  men  are  supposed  to  reveal 
unto  us. 

Thus  the  true  Bible  is  life  itself, — the  sincere, 
earnest,  illumined  life,  in  which  man  dwells  con 
stantly  with  the  Divine  Spirit,  and  reads  the  reve 
lations  of  Its  presence  in  all  the  forms  of  nature. 

There  are  other  worlds  in  this  universe,  other 
lives  for  man ;  but  there  is  no  world  in  which 
God  dwells  more  truly  than  in  this  one,  and  no 
life  in  which  the  soul  can  know  God  by  methods 
different  from  those  by  which  He  is  known  here 
and  now.  We  think,  or  are  told,  that  when  we 
go  to  heaven,  we  shall  see  God.  But  if  we  see 
Him  anywhere  in  this  universe,  it  will  be  through 
that  spiritual  perception  which  is  ours  to  use 
here  and  now. 

When  we  truly  see  and  know  God,  science  can 
never  take  our  knowledge  from  us.  Then,  the 
more  we  know  of  nature,  the  more  we  shall  see 
of  God.  Every  truth  of  science  then  becomes  a 
revelation.  Science  may  well  deny  the  doctrines 
of  God  which  the  church  too  often  teaches;  but 
the  work  of  true  science  is  a  never-ending  un- 


OTHER   ESSAYS.  161 

veiling  of  God ;  a  ceaseless  revealing  of  His 
Presence  in  the  world. 

Science  does  not  speak  of  God  in  the  language 
of  the  Church,  and  so  the  Church  does  not  under 
stand  her ;  but  the  Church  must  learn  the  lan 
guage  of  science.  Then  she  will  understand  the 
gospel  of  Nature,  and  find  a  tongue  in  every  tree, 
a  book  in  every  running  brook,  telling  of  the  God 
whose  Spirit  is  the  Life  in  all  living  things. 

What  we  need  to  save  us  from  atheism  is  not 
a  better  theology,  but  a  better  perception ;  a  per 
ception  to  which  God  is  as  patent  as  the  light  of 
day;  by  which  we  live  in  the  Divine  Presence, 
and  feel  that  Holy  Spirit  which  has  inspired  all 
true  Scriptures  in  the  past.  We  ask  the  Church 
for  God,  and  she  points  to  the  past.  She  should 
point  to  the  present. 

MIRACLES  OF  MAN. 

Yesterday  I  saw  the  huge  engines  at  the  city 
water  works.  Here  is  the  mighty  heart  which 
sends  the  blood  of  the  great  city  pulsing  through 
its  arteries.  Like  the  revolution  of  a  planet  is  the 
mighty  wheel  in  its  ceaseless  motion.  Here  are 
Miracles !  Men  prate  of  ancient  miracles,  and 
think  this  age  profane.  Never  before  were  such 
Miracles ! 

Hefe  is  a  Church.     Here  is  Holy  Water,  to 


162  OTHER   ESSAYS. 

bless  the  people.  Yon  sooty  engineer  is  the  High 
Priest  in  this  temple  of  Man.  Look,  ye  wor 
shippers  of  musty  traditions,  ye  backward-look 
ers  toward  tombs  and  sepulchres,  here  is  a  Liv 
ing  Deity!  The  Fire-gods  are  here,  roaring  in 
yonder  furnaces.  The  Water-gods  are  here, 
sporting  in  their  native  element.  Here  are  occult 
powers,  gods  and  demons  of  old  Chaos,  bound 
Sampson-like  to  turn  the  mills  of  men. 

Who  would  see  Miracles  ?  Let  him  enter  here 
and  look.  The  "Son  of  God"  could  not  work 
such  Miracles !  The  world  needed  these  Mira 
cles.  The  Silence  spoke  not.  Jesus  came,  suf 
fered,  disappeared;  but  squalor  and  want  re 
mained.  Jesus  spoke  words.  These  men  have 
done  great  deeds. 

In  this  Church  there  is  no  creed,  no  liturgy; 
but  Works.  The  world  has  had  faith,  but  faith 
without  Works  is  dead.  By  such  Works  shall 
Man  be  saved,  not  by  faith  alone.  Yet  still  the 
masses  worship  the  musty  miracles  of  old. 

Look  at  these  wondrous  engines,  ye  foolish 
worshippers !  Did  your  "saviour"  make  such 
things  ?  You  say  he  could  turn  water  into  wine. 
Here  is  your  Water-Miracle!  This  gives 
drink  to  a  City.  And  did  not  God  make  these 
wondrous  engines?  Yea,  verily.  God  made 
them;  for  what  God  is  there  but  this  that  works 


OTHER  ESSAYS.  163 

and  speaks  in  Man?  This  is  the  God  that  made 
and  maketh  all  things ;  worlds,  trees,  beasts,  men, 
and  the  works  of  men. 

I  speak  not  in  parables,  to  astonish  and  con 
fuse.  I  speak  plain  words,  to  enlighten  men. 
This  wondrous  engine  is  part  of  the  moving 
Universe.  It  is  one  with  the  Machinery  of  the 
Stars.  The  same  Intelligence  produced  this 
which  produced  sun  and  moon.  I  will  not  wor 
ship  your  god,  my  zealous  brother,  for  he  is  a 
poor,  impotent  thing  sitting  in  abject  idleness  on 
a  distant  throne.  My  God  is  Alive  in  all  things 
that  live  and  act.  I  cannot  go  from  His  Pres 
ence,  nor  escape  the  sound  of  His  Voice.  I  hear 
it  in  the  hum  of  wheels,  in  the  puffing  of 
great  engines,  in  the  sound  of  winds  and  waters, 
in  the  notes  of  birds,  in  the  voice  of  man.  Your 
god  has  been  silent  these  hundreds  of  years.  If 
he  is  alive,  let  him  speak.  If  he  is  not  impotent, 
let  him  do  something  to  help  his  children.  Keep 
silence,  brother ;  if  god  is  alive,  he  can  make  him 
self  known.  He  does  not  need  your  apologies. 

Do  you  not  see  that  you  are  merely  drawing 
the  people's  attention  to  yourself?  The  god  you 
speak  of  is  a  myth  to  them.  You  cannot  prove 
his  existence  by  words.  Point  to  his  works. 
What  are  these?  Are  they  some  ancient  mira 
cles?  Who,  or  what,  then,  is  working  these 


164  OTHER   ESSAYS. 

Miracles  of  today  ?  What  makes  the  grass  grow, 
the  flowers  blossom?  What  makes  the  egg 
hatch,  and  the  mother  bring  forth  her  young? 
What  makes  the  seed  germinate,  and  the  corn 
grow? 

Ah,  my  brother,  you  do  not  know?  Then 
cease  your  chatter  about  "god."  Pore  no  more 
over  musty  books,  seeking  a  record  of  what  some 
other  has  seen  and  known  of  God.  Look  around 
you,  and  you  shall  see  God  for  yourself.  Then 
you  can  speak  as  one  having  authority,  and  not 
merely  as  the  scribes. 

This  is  the  Gospel  not  of  prayers,  not  of  psalm- 
tunes  and  muttered  words  merely,  but  of  Work. 
He  who  works,  shall  preach  this  Gospel.  He 
who  invents,  creates,  controls,  shall  be  an  apostle 
of  this  Gospel.  His  intimate  relation  to  this 
God,  the  indwelling  of  this  God  in  him,  shall  be 
shown  by  the  works  he  does.  The  miracles  of 
old  Gospels  shall  be  but  vain  and  startling  magic- 
shows,  compared  with  the  miracles  of  these  mod 
ern  Sons  of  God.  These  are  your  real  miracles, 
— these  wondrous  engines,  machines,  inventions. 
Watt,  Stephenson,  Morse,  Edison,  Bell, — these, 
and  their  like,  are  your  true  workers  of  miracles. 
Their  miracles  are  permanent.  Their  gift  in 
deed  descends  to  their  disciples,  and  to  all  pos 
terity. 


OTHER   ESSAYS.  165 

THE  VOICE  OF  LOVE. 

What  husband  has  forgotten  the  soft  tones 
with  which  he  wooed  and  won  his  maiden  love? 
He  would  no  sooner  have  wounded  her  tender 
heart  with  cold  and  cruel  words  than  he  would 
have  smitten  her  blushing  cheek  with  his 
clenched  hand. 

The  warbling  of  robins  and  blue  birds,  the  soft 
cooing  of  doves,  are  harsh  beside  the  thrilling 
tones  of  the  lover's  voice,  uttering  the  affections 
of  his  heart.  Why  should  the  voice  ever  lose 
those  musical  tones,  and  acquire  the  harsh  growl 
of  the  tiger? 

The  red  bow  of  the  lips  should  never  shoot 
the  fire-tipped  arrows  of  hate  and  wrath,  but 
only  the  rose-wreathed  darts  of  love. 

Listen  to  the  young  mother  singing  her  lullaby 
over  the  cradle  of  her  first-born.  Like  ripples  of 
joy  upon  a  sea  of  peace  the  notes  of  her  song 
float  out  upon  the  air,  and  the  spirit  of  the  babe 
is  lulled  into  happy  rest.  No  song  of  angels  be 
fore  the  dread  Jehovah's  throne  was  ever  half 
so  beautiful  and  sweet  as  the  song  of  a  mother 
singing  to  her  child.  The  golden  harps  of 
heaven  might  well  be  used  to  sound  an  accom 
paniment  to  such  a  song. 

But  why  should  this  divine,  angelic  music  ever 


i66  OTHER    ESSAYS. 

die  out  of  the  mother's  voice?  Why  should  it 
not  sound  forever  new  and  sweet  in  the  ears  of 
the  child,  the  youth,  the  growing  man? 

Why  should  the  harsh  hand  of  passion  ever 
smite  the  golden  chords  of  the  heart,  and  change 
the  harmonies  of  love  into  the  discordant  notes 
of  anger?  Is  this  high  music  of  love  too  fine 
for  earth,  that  it  should  so  soon  die  out  of  hu 
man  souls?  Must  we  wait  for  heaven  to  fill  our 
souls  with  that  sweet  music  ?  Why  may  we  not 
fill  the  earth  with  this  divine  melody,  so  that  hu 
man  life  everywhere  shall  harmonize  with  the 
soft  notes  of  birds,  the  rustle  of  winds  through 
leafy  boughs,  and  the  chiming  music  of  waves 
upon  the  beach? 

The  lark  and  the  mocking  bird  daily  set  the 
pitch  for  us,  to  which  our  voices  should  be  tuned ; 
but  alas!  we  heed  them  not. 

The  stars  look  down  on  us  to  admonish  us  that 
there  is  music  among  the  spheres,  tho'  earth's  air 
be  filled  with  discords.  The  stellar  spaces  are 
full  of  music,  tho'  our  souls  be  empty  of  it. 

Among  the  glad  harmonies  of  Creation,  that 
have  rolled  thro'  time  and  eternity,  the  song  of 
the  human  soul  should  be  the  gladdest  and  sweet 
est  of  all.  Man  should  be  a  pipe  for  the  spirit 
of  the  Most  High  to  breath  its  melodies  on  and 
through.  Let  us  often  affirm  this  truth,  and  lis- 


OTHER   ESSAYS.  167 

ten  for  the  earthly  echoes  of  that  celestial  music, 
and  the  air  of  earth  shall  be  laden  with  harmony. 
Divine  voices  shall  speak  and  sing  to  us,  and  we 
shall  know  that  Life  is  one  with  Joy. 


FROM  "SOCIAL  LAWS." 

The  following  paragraphs  are  selected,  almost 
at  random,  from  SOCIAL  LAWS,  a  new  and 
timely  book  by  Solon  Lauer,  author  of  "Mark 
Hanna,  a  Sketch  From  Life ;  and  other  Essays ;" 
"Life  and  Light  from  Above ;"  etc.,  etc.  Nike 
Publishing  House,  Cleveland,  O. 

THE  SPIRIT  OF  ANARCHY. 

Though  there  are  comparatively  few  persons 
in  the  United  States  who  are  painfully  poor,  there 
are  probably  several  millions  who  think  them 
selves  so.  They  compare  their  possessions  with 
the  possessions  of  the  wealthy,  and  their  envy 
is  aroused.  They  forget  that  wealth  is  not  the 
only  thing  unequally  distributed  in  this  world; 
that  power,  health,  wisdom,  talent,  virtue  are  also 
distributed  with  most  emphatic  partiality.  They 
see  this  inequality  of  wealth,  and,  inflamed  by  the 
incendiary  appeals  of  "reformers,"  they  begin  to 
complain,  and  to  covet  the  wealth  of  their  more 
fortunate  neighbors. 

"This  belongs  to  us !  It  has  been  stolen  from 
us  by  these  robbers!  It  is  right  for  us  to  seize 
it,  to  reclaim  it!" 

The  conservative  socialist  advises  to  reclaim  it 
by  legislation ;  the  anarchist,  by  force. 


"Voting  is  an  illusion,"  says  the  anarchist ;  and 
at  last  the  people  are  convinced.  Then  torch  and 
musket,  bomb  and  cannon,  perform  what  ballots 
could  not  do ;  and  the  hell  of  revolution  is  at 
hand. 

BANISH  VIOLENCE. 

The  guarantee  of  better  times  for  you,  my 
friends,  is  in  no  manner  of  legislating,  no  sort  of 
instituted  socialism ;  but  in  the  eternal  Laws, 
which  rule  all  things.  These  Laws  will  befriend 
you,  if  you  get  yourselves  upon  their  side.  Put 
away  torches,  muskets,  bombs;  burn  your  in 
flammatory  papers,  which  do  but  bring  the  fires 
of  hell  into  your  hearts  and  homes;  send  your 
loud-mouthed  orators  to  Africa,  where,  amid  des 
ert  sands,  they  may  harangue  and  mutually  de 
vour  one  another,  to  YOUR  relief  and  eternal 
salvation;  and  then  do  you  begin  to  practice  in 
dustry,  economy,  temperance,  virtue,  patience. 
Before  you  know  it,  the  Kingdom  has  arrived. 

I  love  you  all,  my  brothers,  but  I  will  not  flatter 
you.  I  will  not  join  in  your  savage  outcry  against 
capital.  I  know  your  sorrows,  for  I  have  suf 
fered  most  of  them.  I  know  the  pinching  grasp 
of  poverty.  I  know  what  it  is  to  labor  and  to 
wait.  I  know  there  are  unworthy  rich, — fools, 
sensualists, — clad  in  gay  apparel,  and  dwelling 
in  fine  houses,  feeding  on  the  very  essence  of  the 


world's  products,  but  rendering  to  mankind  noth 
ing  in  return ;  slothful  and  vicious  persons,  living 
upon  their  patrimony,  while  you  must  earn  your 
daily  bread  by  the  distillation  of  your  very  blood. 
I  know  that  hunger  and  disease,  poverty  and 
squalor,  stalk  abroad  in  this  great  land  of  ours, 
and  flaunt  their  rags  in  the  very  faces  of  these 
luxurious  fops.  But  shall  we,  because  of  these 
things,  shriek  at  Fate,  curse  Government,  impre 
cate  Capitalists,  cry  "Burn!  kill!  destroy?" 

THE  GOOD  DESTINY. 

Slowly  the  methods  of  industry  are  perfecting, 
not  through  mad  shouting  of  orators  or  fierce 
scribbling  of  editors ;  but  through  the  experience 
of  business  men  themselves.  Not  these  loud  brawl 
ers,  not  these  wild-eyed  scribblers,  not  these  in 
cendiary  and  bomb-armed  anarchists  shall  bring 
about  the  consummation  devoutly  to  be  wished; 
but  these  very  Capitalists,  these  Ogres,  these  De 
mons,  these  Cut-throat  Robbers,  these  Carcasses 
whom  you  revile,  they  are  to  be  your  saviours. 
Crucify  them  not.  Ye  know  not  what  ye  would 
do !  They  are  not  gods,  they  are  not  saints ;  we 
will  grant,  if  you  please,  that  many  of  them  are 
selfish,  cruel,  hard,  Egyptian  task-masters ;  yet 
through  such  means  doth  the  Destiny  that  rules 
the  world  work  out  its  intended  Good  to  all. 


THE  MONOPOLY  OF  GENIUS. 

The  gifts  of  genius  can  never  be  distributed  by 
laws.  Anarchy  may  destroy,  but  can  never  dis 
tribute  them.  Who  gave  Shakespeare  his  dra 
matic  genius?  Imagine  a  company  of  his  con 
temporaries  rising  up,  and  with  endless  discord 
ant  clamor  demanding  an  equal  distribution  of 
his  gifts ! 

"Down  with  Shakespeare!  He  has  absorbed 
the  wit  and  fancy  of  a  whole  generation  into  his 
ponderous  brain!  We  are  poor.  Our  wits  are 
lean.  With  all  our  scratching,  of  heads  and 
pens,  we  write  no  Hamlet,  no  Macbeth.  All 
laurels  are  laid  at  his  feet.  We  get  none  at  all. 
He  is  a  Monopolist ;  a  tyrant  of  the  empire  of  In 
tellect.  Let  us  abolish  him,  that  we  may  all  be 
Shakespeares !" 

"You  caricature  our  arguments,"  protests  the 
socialist;  "this  is  manifest  absurdity  and  mad 
ness  !" 

Ah!  The  reductio  ad  absurdum!  Not  more 
absurd  is  this  demand,  that  the  gifts  of  literary 
'and  musical  genius  should  be  equally  distributed, 
than  the  demand  which  socialism  makes,  that  the 
gifts  of  commercial  genius  shall  be  made  common 
to  all  men. 

To  be  sure,  we  do  not  hear  these  Higher 
Things  so  clamored  for !  .  The  wisdom  of  a  Soc 
rates,  the  virtue  of  a  Jesus,  the  genius  of  a  Bee- 


thoven,  a  Raphael,  a  Shakespeare,  we  do  not 
cry  out  for,  and  demand  the  distribution  of! 
Well  for  us  were  it  if  these  things  might  become 
common !  The  race  sadly  needs  these  things ;  but 
it  cries  out  only  for  lower  things ! 

All  genius  is  one.  The  power  to  organise  and 
conduct  vast  industries  is  as  much  a  gift  of  na 
ture  as  is  the  power  to  write  great  dramas,  or 
compose  sublime  symphonies.  Though  it  wreak 
itself  upon  things  rather  than  thoughts,  it  is  yet 
Genius ;  incommunicable,  undistributable,  above 
legislation,  above  mobs.  Envy  may  reach  at  it, 
but  can  never  grasp  it.  Hate  may  destroy  it, 
but  can  never  share  it.  Because  it  is  Power,  it 
will  forever  rule,  in  selfishness  or  love. 

THE  POOR  MAN'S  AGE. 

All  the  institutions  of  the  state  and  modern  city 
exist  to  the  advantage  of  the  poor  man,  but  are 
supported  chiefly  by  the  middle  and  upper  classes. 
The  man  who  owns  no  foot  of  land  walks  over  the 
city's  well-paved  streets,  enjoys  its  parks,  its  pub 
lic  libraries,  its  free  lectures,  and  other  benefi 
cent  institutions,  though  he  pays  no  dollar  to  sup 
port  them.  It  is  the  poor  man's  age.  Never  be 
fore  was  the  poor  man  so  rich  a  man;  never  be 
fore  did  he  enjoy  so  many  benefits  for  which  he 
does  not  pay;  never  before  could  he  buy  so  many 
useful  and  beautiful  things  for  his  dollar;  and  yet, 


on  every  hand  rises  the  cry,  "The  poor  man  is 
oppressed,  is  robbed,  is  enslaved  to  cruel  mas 
ters  !"  On  every  side  rise  up  blatant  "reform 
ers,"  inciting  these  "poor  men"  to  riot,  revenge, 
and  robbery. 

WAGES  FOR  BRAIN  WORKERS. 

Shall  business  managers,  in  that  socialistic 
golden  age,  manage  business  for  fun? 

"They  shall  have  a  salary." 

Are  not  wages,  my  brother,  for  boss  and  work 
man  alike,  regulated  by  the  law  of  supply  and 
cjemand  ?  When  you  can  get  these  business  man 
agers  on  better  terms,  by  all  means  get  them. 
What  hinders  that  you  get  them  now?  Ah! 
They  are  scarce,  and  come  high!  There  are  a 
million  moulders  or  pork-packers  to  one  Carnegie 
or  Armour.  These  latter,  then,  must  have  good 
pay.  Are  they  not  worth  their  price?  They  do 
not  compel  us  to  pay  them  these  high  wages. 
We  pay  because  their  services  are  cheap  at  the 
price.  A  Paderewski  is  not  protected  by  laws  or 
trusts;  he  enters  into  no  conspiracy  with  other 
musicians  to  force  up  the  price  of  tickets.  Yet 
he  grows  rich  on  the  voluntary  tributes  of  the 
people  who  go  to  his  recitals.  Genius  of  any  sort 
is  at  last  worth  the  highest  price  the  world  will 
pay  for  its  services.  Shall  Paderewski  hire  him 
self  to  a  socialistic  community  of  music-lovers,  to 


play  to  them  on  a  small  salary  ?  Until  Paderew- 
skis  are  more  common  can  any  socialism  bring 
down  their  wages  to  the  price  of  a  street-organ 
grinder  ? 

THE  DUCK  WITH  ONE  DUCKLING. 

There  is  in  these  days  of  quacks  one  species 
of  quacking  which  is  especially  loud  and  clamor 
ous  ;  namely,  the  quacking  of  the  Duck  with  the 
single  Duckling.  "Quack,  quack;  quick,  quick; 
see  my  duckling;  see  my  fine  duckling!  Here  is 
your  saviour,  all  ye  ducks  that  have  no  duck- 
pond;  all  ye  ducks  that  have  not  corn  enough; 
quack,  quack;  quick,  quick!" 

And  at  the  sound  of  this  quacking  all  bereaved 
and  complaining  ducks  waddle  quickly  to  see  this 
young  messiah,  who  is  to  restore  all  duck-ponds 
to  their  original  owners,  the  Ducks !  With  great 
clamor  and  flapping  of  wings,  with  much  stretch 
ing  of  necks  and  gaping  of  bills,  these  pondless 
ducks  gather  round  the  proud  mother-duck,  who 
straightway,  with  such  oracular  gabblings  as 
have  never  before  been  heard  in  all  Duckdom, 
proceeds  to  show  how  this  her  young  offspring, 
hatched  from  an  egg  of  her  own  laying,  shall 
lead  all  ducks  to  water,  which  shall  be  thence 
forth  theirs,  theirs,  to  paddle  in  forevermore!  If 
any  unfeathered  biped  shall  thenceforth  want  this 
water,  to  sail  his  ships  on,  or  to  turn  his  turbine 


wheels,  "he  shall  pay  huge  tribute  to  these  Ducks, 
whose  occupancy  gives  this  water  all  its  worth! 
All  expense  of  Duckdom — coops,  com,  repairs 
of  pond — shall  be  paid  out  of  this  tribute  money. 
Thus  shall  all  Ducks  be  happy  and  prosperous, 
and  enabled,  with  protruding  crops  and  well- 
brushed,  wiggling  tail-feathers,  to  waddle  about 
quacking-out  their  contentment  as  Ducks  were 
ordained  to  do  by  the  Creator  of  all  Ducks ! 

LAND  WINNERS  AND  LAND  OWNERS. 

"The  land  belongs  to  the  people!"  exclaim  all 
socialists,  whether  they  swear  "by  George"  or 
"by  Jove." 

And  who  are  the  people?  we  must  ask  again. 
The  people!  Is  this  some  fanciful,  airy  race, 
floating  over  our  real  and  actual  race,  like  the 
gods  of  old  Greece?  Now  it  appears,  now  it  is 
gone !  Brother,  it  is  a  word  used  to  juggle  with ! 
There  is  no  such  "people  I"  There  are  individuals, 
— men — strong,  hairy,  laboring  and  thinking  men 
— with  hearts  of  flesh,  and  hot  red  blood  in  their 
veins;  with  brains,  more  or  less,  in  their  round, 
bony  skulls ;  but  this  "people"  is  a  myth.  Who 
chop  the  trees,  grub  the  brush,  burn  off  the  na 
tive  growth  and  plough  up  the  wild  land?  Is  it 
the  "people?"  No,  brother,  this  work  is  done 
by  certain  men,  of  strong,  brawny  frame,  of 
brave,  stout-beating  heart.  They  do  indeed  own 


this  land;  they  win  it,  not  from  mere  wild  In 
dians,  but  from  wild  Nature  herself,  by  a  valor 
greater  than  that  of  armed  soldiers.  Shall  they 
not  hold  this  land  as  theirs,  bequeath  it  to  their 
children,  sell  it  to  other  men,  or  do  with  it  as 
we  all  do  with  our  own? 

While  lands  and  lords  exist  there  will  be  land 
lords.  See  how  your  magic  works  its  own  defeat. 
You  tax  John  Smith,  landlord.  Does  John  Smith 
pay  this  tax?  Not  a  penny  of  it,  not  a  penny 
of  it,  my  man.  The  merchant  who  has  his  store 
on  this  lot,  does  he  pay  this  tax  ?  Not  a  penny  of 
it.  To  be  sure,  Smith  the  landlord  hands  this 
money  to  the  tax-collector ;  Brown  the  merchant' 
hands  the  like  amount  to  Smith ;  but  where  does 
Brown  get  it?  From  the  added  prices  of  his 
goods.  Who  then  pays  this  tax?  Not  Smith 
nor  Brown,  but  the  dear  people !  Verily,  the 
dear  people,  my  man ! 

INDUSTRIAL  ORGANIZATION. 

Every  new  machine  has  been  met  with  mingled 
blessings  and  curses.  There  are  those  today 
who  denounce  machinery;  who  would  destroy  it 
all,  in  the  supposed  interests  of  manual  workers, 
and  send  the  human  race  back  to  semi-barba 
rism.  Not  so  is  the  hand  of  progress  moved  for 
ward  upon  the  dial  of  human  life.  The  principle 
of  economy  of  production  is  a  safe  and  good  prin- 


ciple,  wherever  it  is  applied;  whether  through 
machinery  or  through  industrial  organisation. 
It  means  at  last,  if  not  at  first,  better  and  cheaper 
products  for  all  the  sons  of  men. 

If  laborers  are  free  to  combine,  in  the  interests 
of  higher  wages,  why  may  not  capitalists  unite, 
even  in  the  interests  of  higher  prices?  If  we  are 
to  prohibit  the  latter  by  law,  why  not  the  former  ? 

NATURAL  ARISTOCRACY. 

We  want  no  mere  mob  rule  in  America.  Let 
Kings  rule,  as  is  their  natural  right.  The  value 
of  our  Institutions  consists  in  this,  that  they  per 
mit  the  true  King,  the  natural  ruler,  to  reach  and 
ascend  his  rightful  throne. 

We  must  not  flatter  the  mob,  more  than  the 
monopolist.  Let  our  speech  be  such  as  can  be 
heard  by  both,  even  though  acceptable  to  neither. 
It  is  not  popular  to  defend  the  Capitalist.  I  do 
not  say  he  should  always  be  defended;  but  he 
should  have  justice  done  him — he  should  have  his 
case  fairly  stated. 

These  men  exist  from  Nature,  not  from  our 
industrial  institutions.  They  rule  because  they 
are  born  to  do  so.  Sceptres  belong  to  those  zvho 
can  wield  them,  not  to  those  whose  palms  itch 
for  them.  Though  these  men  were  all  killed,  Na 
ture  would  send  more  such  to  rule  the  masses. 
These  frogs  need  a  king,  though  not  one  that 


shall  eat  them  up.  No  frog  can  rule  the  frogs, 
though  he  puff  himself  never  so  big.  Under 
whatever  disguise,  we  find  that  Power  rules. 

SATAN'S  WILES. 

Poor  man,  I  know  that  often  the  tears  of  sor 
row  dim  thine  eyes ;  that  often  the  dust  and  smoke 
of  the  factory  dim  them,  so  thou  canst  not  see  the 
truth.  Thou  canst  not  see  and  understand  these 
Laws  that  rule  thee  over  thy  head.  Thou  art 
engaged  in  tasks.  Thou  nearest  the  cry  of  thy 
desires,  and  the  desires  of  thy  loved  ones.  Thou 
seest  rich  men  eating  and  drinking  what  thy 
poverty  has  denied  to  thee.  Thou  seest  them  in 
fine  houses,  rich  apparel,  which  thou  canst  not  at 
tain.  Is  it  to  be  wondered  at  that  thou  listenest 
to  the  voice  of  the  tempter,  the  cry  of  the  "re 
former,"  who  promises  thee  all  these  fine  king 
doms  of  the  earth  if  thou  wilt  but  worship  him? 
I  say  unto  thee,  my  friend,  bid  him  sternly  get 
behind  thee. 


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